


The Pet Shop

by queenmab_scherzo



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pet Store, Bucky has a dog, Crush at First Sight, Dogs, Fluff, M/M, Miscommunication, can i make it any more obvious, sam is a dog trainer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-05-23 13:39:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14935319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenmab_scherzo/pseuds/queenmab_scherzo
Summary: Bucky adopts a dog, and she's great, honestly. She's just a handful. And Bucky is short on hands. Lucky for him, his buddy Steve works at a corner pet store, so he hooks Bucky up with the dog trainer there, Sam Wilson.No, not THAT kind of hook-up. No matter how much Bucky (and all the pets) try to flirt.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> it has come to my attention that i have a reputation for writing super-angst. and while i don't think that's a BAD thing, i do like to try new things once in awhile.
> 
> so i wrote this story which is full of literal fluff and rainbows and cake.

It’s hard to walk a dog with one arm. No surprise, or anything. There’s plenty things that are hard to do with one arm. It's just that walking a dog isn’t one of those normal everyday tasks that counselors tell you to prepare for.

Bucky’s mom thought of it. When he told her he was getting a dog, she was thrilled at first, because when an amputee soldier with PTSD says he’s getting a dog, the first thing that comes to mind is one of those super-good-pre-trained service dogs, right? Then he told her it was a shelter dog who had never been trained to live in an apartment, and her half-smile kind of froze in place. And she was like, “Do you know how hard it will be to walk your dog in the city, Bucky?” She didn’t say, “Do you know how hard it will be to walk a dog with one arm?” but it was implied.

It wasn’t really up for debate, though. As soon as he saw the dog, he had to have her. She had three legs, for crying out loud. In a world where Bucky had totally given up on soul mates, Captain was gonna be his soul mate.

His mom was right, though. It’s hard to walk a dog with one arm.

It doesn’t help that Captain is a hard dog to walk in the first place. She pulls on the leash, tries to hug every person she sees, barks at pigeons, trips Bucky every time she sees a bird she wants to bark at, and in the summer she walks really fast to get from one shady patch to the next. He doesn’t blame her for that, so much. It’s no desert, but the big city has its own way of baking heat into the concrete until it’s permanent.

Anyway, Captain is a mess.

Which is why he’s walking her to the corner pet store, or more specifically, why she’s dragging him down the block to the corner pet store. Bucky’s not even that slow, but somehow Captain gets to the end of that leash and just thinks she’s gotta pull him like they’re coming up second in the Iditarod.

When they’re a block away, he can see the pet store. Big colorful fantasy illustrations splash across the windows in rainbow chalk, lighting up the brick building like a flower bush bursting through the corner windows. As they draw closer, the artwork comes to life: a pack of puppies chasing a butterfly; a mouse poking her head from a piece of Swiss cheese; two cats curled into the shape of a heart; a fat green frog with his long tongue stretched toward the front door; a big three-colored dog covered in sudsy bubbles that look like they’re actually shining in the sun. And the most impressive illustration, a particolored parrot whose wings fan across an entire window pane, little music notes drifting from its beak.

Bucky overhears a girl in a Yankee cap when she turns to her friend and says, “Wow, they must have a really good artist working at that pet store.”

 _They do have a good artist,_ Bucky thinks, and he smiles to himself.

Then Captain tries to leap into some other stranger’s lap and snag his hot dog. It feels like the leash yanks on Bucky’s heart. “Captain, no!” He says, jerking the leash and wrapping it around his hand a dozen times so he can tug her away.

“Damn dog!”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

“He tried to bite me!”

“Captain, come on!”

“Hey, what happened to his leg?”

“She’s just—I mean—I’m sorry,” Bucky stammers, dragging Captain around the corner, because getting out of there is probably better and easier than trying to come up with excuses.

Yeah, his dog’s a mess. Especially when New York dogs are involved.

After a small, melodramatic scuffle involving a little bit of dog claws and a lot of slobber, Bucky gets her around the corner to the front door. Which is the next obstacle. Bucky heaves on the leash, pulls Captain close, and wedges her between his legs, staring longingly at the little “OPEN” sign over the door handle.

“Gotta teach you how to open doors, Cap.”

She squirms, tongue flailing, wagging not only her little half-tail but also her entire butt. Bucky’s still in good shape or she could probably topple him over.

While Bucky is gauging his ability to restrain his dog and open a door at the same time, the door opens on its own. Actually, somebody opens it from the inside.

“Bucky!”

Two hundred pounds of All-American muscle and clean-cut blond hair kick the door open and engulf Bucky in a hug.

“Hey, Steve.”

“I’m so glad you made it!”

“Well, you know,” Bucky says. He wobbles a little in Steve’s grip. He’s used to one-armed balance by now, but _you_ try standing up straight with the American Dream tackling you and a lunatic Australian shepherd flailing between your knees. Bucky plants his feet. “You threatened to abduct my dog if I didn’t show up. So. Here I am.”

Steve pulls away, laughing and avoiding eye contact. “I was joking.”

“Sure, Steve.”

“So, this is the shop!” Steve says, ignoring Bucky’s perfectly valid implications of dognapping.

Steve steps aside, and Bucky gets his first look at the pet store. His best friend has worked here over a year, but Bucky spent half that year in a hospital and half that year in rehab and half that year apartment hunting.

Maybe Steve has been here longer than a year. Has it been that many half-years?

To be honest, Bucky can’t keep track of how long he’s been back. It feels like his arm got blew off yesterday, but it also feels like it happened a century ago to another person entirely. And technically his arm didn’t get blew off. Blood loss and infection and amputation just sounds so much less glamorous, and he _did_ save six people, so he figures he can tell the story however he likes.

Anyway, this is officially the first time Bucky has visited Steve’s pet store. He’s heard a lot about it, but that didn’t prepare him for the onslaught of color.

“You sure pack a lot of stuff in here,” Bucky blurts.

“Well, you know, we are trying to _sell_ most of it,” Steve says with a wink.

Bucky scoffs, but his eyes are already zeroing in on each detail. A counter, a cash register, a camera mounted discreetly overhead. Flea and tick treatment behind the counter. A wall of leashes and collars arranged by colors of the rainbow, and behind the rainbow display, the rest of the store. Bird cages hanging from the ceiling, holding not birds, but fake vines and colorful florals. Bucky can hear birds, though, screeching deep inside the shop.

That’s his second impression: the store is loud.

Birds shrieking, dogs barking, people talking, and background music tinkling through the overhead speakers. Bucky tilts his head and recognizes 70s soul.

“I like it,” he declares.

Steve smiles.

Bucky tries to step inside, but the leash goes taut and he stops in his tracks.

He and Steve turn around and face the sidewalk.

“What—oh, come on, are you kidding me, Cap?” Bucky sighs. His dog is stock still, digging her heels into the welcome mat and eyeing the storefront with fear. Bucky tugs on the leash, and she lowers her ears. “Cap, it’s fine. You’re fine.”

The girl at the animal shelter told him Aussies don’t have tails. Whatever Captain is mixed with must have had a tail, because she has four inches of fluff that never seems to stop wagging. Except now. Now it’s between her legs.

Steve gets down on one knee and coos. “Come here, Captain! It’s okay, I promise!”

Captain tries to back up, but she’s at the end of the leash.

“Oh my god,” Bucky heaves a sigh. “Captain, it’s just Steve, you know Steve.”

She whines.

“You’re fucking ridiculous.”

“It’s okay,” Steve insists. “Look, I have treats.”

After a little force and a lot of bribery, they get Captain’s stubborn butt inside the store and close the door. She’s timid at first, but then she gets ten feet inside and it’s like nothing bad has ever happened in her life. She springs up onto Steve, lunging for the Milk Bone in his hand.

Steve stretches his arm up and laughs. “Sit. Sit! You gotta sit, Cap!”

Captain’s butt hits the ground for like 0.7 seconds and then she’s spinning around Steve’s feet again, twisting him up and trying to trip him. He’s built like an MMA fighter, so he’s hard to trip up, but if anyone could do it, it would be Bucky’s maniac dog.

“Don’t encourage her,” Bucky grumbles, even as he tries not to smile. “Sit, girl.”

She sits. Her little turbo-tail dusts the floor. Steve giggles. “There you go!” When he tries to give Captain the treat, she jumps on him again.

Bucky drops his head back and sighs. “This is exactly why we’re here.”

“Yeah, man!” Steve says, eyes bright. “Sam is probably at the back of the store. I’m waiting for a customer, so I gotta stay up here.”

Steve is a dog groomer. Or bather. Or both. He spends all day elbow deep in dog baths and then cuts their hair and sends them home; that's how he explains it, at least.

“Are you sure this is okay?” Bucky asks. He kneels next to Captain, who squirms into his arms and kisses his ear.

Steve laughs. “I set everything up for you. Sam is really cool, and he’s a really good trainer. Trust me, Captain’s gonna love it.”

Bucky hugs his dog. “He’s gonna _have_ to be good.”

Captain snorts.

“Thanks, Cap.”

“Go ahead,” Steve laughs. “He knows you’re coming.”

The shop is comfortably humid, not only because old brick buildings only partly hold off the New York Summer, but also because it _looks_ humid, washed in the mottled shade of Steve’s chalk-drawings, a living photo filter.

“Let’s go, Captain.” Bucky lets her sniff and follows her into the store. They pass the rainbow of leashes and collars and find more aisles packed with merchandise. Dog treats and rawhides, then another rainbow of dog toys. Ropes, Frisbees, tennis balls, stuffed cartoon animals, squeaky toys shaped like fruits and veggies, a six-foot caterpillar with a squeaker in every single body segment. Captain seems to have recovered from her weird doorway anxiety attack, and now she wants to sniff every item she can get her nose on. She seems mesmerized by a realistic stuffed rabbit on an end-display, and it takes a lot of coaxing to lead her away. After the toys, there are several aisles of dog food. The other half of the store mirrors this half, only the opposite aisles are packed with corresponding cat products.

Captain wants to smell all of that, too, of course. “Maybe next time, baby,” Bucky says, leading her away before she can get too engrossed.

They reach a big double doorway with no door and find a whole other room, so big that it’s practically another store.

Captain’s nose goes haywire. Bucky doesn’t blame her. This half of the store is filled with strange, exotic products for strange, exotic animals. There are bags of mulch and hay and bird seed. An entire aisle blooming with fake plants and natural décor. Stacks of glass tanks, acrylic tanks, terrariums, and more birdcages of all sizes. Absently following her nose, Captain drifts down the plant aisle, and before Bucky realizes what’s happening, her little half-tail snags a fake vine and drags it onto the floor. Captain flails.

“No, sweetie!” Bucky cries. “No, you’re fine!” He stomps a foot onto her leash and feverishly tries to detangle the plastic from her fluffy tail. “It’s fine, it’s not gonna get you, you’re fine!”

Another plant leaps onto the ground and Captain does a barrel roll. “No—” Bucky cries, but then realizes the maneuver has freed her from the plastic vine. “Okay, easy, easy now, shh, you’re fine.”

Before Bucky even replaces the decorations on the shelf, Captain has moved on, happy as can be. “You’re ridiculous,” he declares, and follows her gaze down to the end of the aisle.

A wall of glass squares lines the inner wall. Bucky squints. Something moves inside, and he realizes there are actual snakes in the tanks.

“Nope,” he says, “absolutely not, let’s go, we don’t need to go that way. Let’s go, Cap.”

Bucky turns a corner and Captain’s ears flick up. She boofs. Bucky’s stomach crinkles. She probably saw a dog, dammit; she’s friendly, but she’s just so _barky_ , it always makes other dogs tense, and—

Someone whistles.

Bucky darts around the corner.

There is no dog, and no people either, for that matter.

_“Pretty bird!”_

Bucky blinks. “What?”

_“Pretty bird!”_

There’s a bird standing in front of him, perched on a fake tree branch about five feet off the ground. It bobs its head and whistles again.

“Hello?” Bucky says.

The bird fluffs its feathers. Captain darts to the end of the leash and releases a sharp whine.

 _“Bad dog!”_ the bird says.

Captain barks. Like, all-out barks, not a little boof under her breath.

_“Bad dog!”_

And now the bird has Captain’s full attention, which means she’s barking full-tilt, and the bird starts flapping and screaming.

Bucky clutches Captain’s leash and sucks air. “No—what?!”

The bird screams.

Captain barks.

“Okay—stop, no, Cap, no—okay—fuck—” Bucky tugs on the leash, heart pounding. There’s an aisle nearby, if he can just get Captain out of sight of this stupid bird—

“Hey!” a voice sounds nearby.

Captain barks.

“We’re going, we’re going!” Bucky exclaims.

“Hey, what did you do to my bird?!”

Bucky whirls. It’s not the bird talking. “Holy shit,” he says.

The man folds his arms and frowns at Bucky, then at Captain. “Are you messing with my bird?”

“She started it!” Bucky says automatically.

The stranger tilts his head. “She weighs two ounces, she didn’t start nothing.”

_“Pretty bird!”_

He turns to face the parrot. “Yes you are!” he says. He pulls something out of his pocket and feeds it. “Who’s a pretty bird?”

_“Pretty bird!”_

Captain barks.

“Hush,” Bucky says, gently tugging the leash. “I’m sorry, she’s really excited.”

The guy turns back and gets a good look at them. Actually, he gives Bucky a cursory glance, and then all his attention falls on Captain. “Oh, look at you. You’re beautiful! What’s her name?”

“Captain.”

The dog looks at Bucky when he says her name, then back at the stranger. Her tongue flops back and forth as she turns.

“Captain!” the stranger says. “That’s an awesome name. Can I pet her?”

“Um. Yeah, yeah, of course,” Bucky says, and even as he says it, Cap shoves her face into the employee’s outstretched hands.

“Oh, you’re a lover. You’re a lover, aren’t you, Captain?” he says.

As if agreeing, Captain gently squirms onto her hind legs and hugs him.

“Captain, down!” Bucky says. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

_“Pretty bird!”_

The stranger laughs. “Oh, stop,” he says. He tilts his hips so Captain drops back onto the floor, then digs in his pockets for another bird treat. “Redwing always wants to be the center of attention.”

The bird whistles. _“Bad dog!”_

“Oh, don’t say that!” the employee says. “She’s not bad.”

_“Bad dog!”_

“Who’s a pretty bird?”

_“Pretty bird!”_

“That’s better.” He relinquishes a sunflower seed. “You’re okay, the dog’s not gonna get you.”

“Sorry,” Bucky says automatically. “We didn’t mean to freak her out.”

Bucky watches as the bird takes the seed from the employee’s hand. It has a fat, grey beak and beautiful fiery feathers, bright oranges and yellows cooling to a long blue-green tail. She’s a parrot, but not the big tropical pterodactyl kind. She’s about a foot long, about the size of Bucky’s fist.

“You said her name is Redwing?” Bucky asks.

“Mm-hm.”

“But she has blue wings.”

The stranger levels him with a flat stare. “So when did Captain here get her commission?” he asks drily.

At the sound of her name, Captain promptly sits.

“Oh, you want a treat, too?” the employee is instantly all charm, again. “Jealous.” He scratches her ear.

While he’s distracted, Bucky gets a better look at him. Bucky can tell he’s an employee because he’s got on the official red polo, just like Steve. It stretches over broad shoulders, and Bucky stares a little too long while his dog gets head-scratches. Then his eyes drift to the stranger’s chest and his name tag.

His stomach crumples. “Oh,” he says, clearing his throat. “Are you Sam?”

Sam looks up, blinking rapidly. Shock splashes across his face, just for a split second. Then he shows a toothy smile. “That’s me. You're my two o'clock, right?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, ducking his head and clenching his jaw like that could stop him from blushing. “We’re here for training.”

Sam straightens up and wipes his hands on his jeans. “So this is Captain, and …?”

“And … and she’s terrible?”

Sam blinks. He sort of smiles in a bemused way. “I meant, what’s _your_ name?”

“Oh.” Bucky processes the last 10 seconds of conversation, blushes harder, and pretends not to stare at the gap between Sam’s front teeth. “Sorry.”

Sam tilts his head expectantly.

“Oh, right. I’m Bucky.”

“Nice to meet you, Bucky.” Sam holds out a hand.

Bucky shifts his grip on the leash so the loop falls around his wrist, and he shakes Sam’s hand. “You, too.”

Sam separates the handshake in about a split-second. He clears his throat and runs a hand over his hair, ducks his head, doesn’t look at Bucky. He looks down instead. “So, Captain,” Sam says, propping his hands on his hips. “Let’s get started.”

 _Great,_ Bucky thinks. _He thinks I’m a dick._

Steve signed him up for 5 training classes. This is gonna be a long-ass month.


	2. Chapter 2

A week later, Bucky comes in for Captain’s next training session. On the way, they practice. They try, anyway.

(“Captain, watch me. No. No. No, watch me. Captain, watch me. There you go! Good girl!”

It’s like that every time they see a pigeon, basically. So it takes awhile to walk to the store. But they _do_ practice.)

Then, after dragging the dog through the front door, they sit for a treat from the cashier, Maria, but only after Captain jumps on her, because Captain will only listen if a treat is right between her eyes, apparently. When Maria tries to give Captain the Milk Bone, Captain won’t eat it. She sniffs it, snorts in Maria’s hand, and smiles at her.

“Cap, come on, it’s a treat!”

She wags her tail and jumps on Bucky.

“Off,” he says wearily. “Wait, do you have another treat?”

Maria hands one over. “Will she eat it?”

“No, but she’ll sit for it.” Bucky holds the treat out, and Captain plunks her butt on the ground.

Overall, Maria is very patient.

She’d have to be, working with Steve Rogers, and all.

They say thank-you to Maria and head toward the back of the store, where he found Sam the first time around. _This_ time, Bucky is prepared for Redwing. He’s not gonna let Captain sneak up on Sam’s bird again.

He coils Captain’s leash nice and short before turning the corner, comes face-to-face with Redwing’s perch, and—

“It’s empty,” Bucky says.

“Looking for us?”

Captain goes berserk before Bucky can even spin around.

“Stop, no bark, stop it!” Bucky tries. “Sorry, she—Captain, it’s okay. Captain, watch me! Watch me!”

Sam's eyes go round.

His bird is perched on his shoulder, poofed to twice her size.

“Captain, sit!” Bucky says, but it’s useless. He drops down to Captain’s level and winds his arm around her shoulders. “Cap, chill.”

She growls.

“That’s it,” Bucky says. “No bark. You’re fine.”

She licks her lips.

“Oh my god,” Bucky sighs. Wincing, he glances up at Sam. He kind of expects to get kicked out of the store. At least kicked out of dog training.

 _“Bad dog!”_ the bird shouts.

Sam snorts.

“She knows that one really well,” Bucky grumbles. “You help Sam teach the puppies, Redwing?”

“Oh, totally. Got the whole good-cop-bad-cop thing,” Sam says. He folds his arms over his chest. It kind of creates this perfect rectangle of shoulders and forearms and Bucky’s mad about it.

“Does she yell at all your dogs?” Bucky asks.

Sam reaches up to give Redwing a little scratch. She leans into his finger. “I didn’t teach her the bad-dog thing,” he says. “That was Steve.”

Bucky laughs. “Of course it was.” He gets to his feet with one of those sore-old-man groans. He ignores the way Sam watches really close. Bucky’s used to weird looks from people any time he does something mundanely difficult with one arm.

Once Bucky’s standing up, Captain gives it another shot; she darts to the end of the leash, which Bucky still has nice and short. “No, ma’am,” he says. “Watch me!”

Captain continues to stare at Redwing.

“We’ve been practicing, I promise!” Bucky says.

Sam reaches for his belt and spins it around to reveal—

“Is that a fanny pack?” Bucky blurts.

Sam grins. “This is a _treat_ pouch,” he says clearly. “Because I’m a _professional_.”

Bucky smiles and shakes his head. He’s trying to come up with a clever response when his dog barks again and interrupts him.

“No!” Bucky says instantly. “Watch me! Come on, Cap, you know this.”

“Here,” Sam says, pulling some treats out. “She does know it, she just hasn’t generalized it. You gotta be the most interesting thing in the room to get her attention, because she’s not 100% yet. So you gotta use a treat.”

“I’m always the most interesting thing in the room,” Bucky says absently, and takes the treats from Sam.

For a second, Sam stares at him. Then he breaks into an easy grin and laughs. “I dunno, Redwing is pretty cool.”

“Pretty distracting,” Bucky argues. “Captain. Captain!” No response.

“Yeah, okay, Most Interesting Man in the World,” Sam says. “I was gonna put Redwing up, but y’all are _kind_ of in our way.”

“We were here first,” Bucky counters.

Captain barks.

“Don’t bark!” Bucky says. “Watch me!” he adds, using the treat and the hand command and everything.

Captain looks at Redwing. She sits down, though, which is nice and well-behaved and all. Baby steps.

“You can use her name, more, too,” Sam says. “Her name is always the best way to get her attention. Say it before every command.”

“Captain, watch me!” Bucky says.

Captain glances at him, cocks her head, and looks back at Sam.

“Yes!” Bucky sneaks the treat in. “I mean, sort of. Good girl!”

She sniffs the treat, flicks it out of Bucky’s hand with her tongue, and leaves it on the floor.

Bucky rubs his temple. “Oh my God.”

Laughing the whole way, Sam walks around Captain to get to Redwing’s perch. He bends his knees so his shoulder is level with the fake branch, and Redwing carefully steps off onto the wood. She whistles.

Captain spins around to stare at her.

Bucky springs into action. “Captain, watch me!”

Captain spins around and looks at him.

“Yeah—good!” he cries, taken aback. “Good girl, good girl Cap!” He says, and tries to give her a treat. This time, she ignores it entirely. Her attention goes back to the bird.

Bucky looks at Sam, kind of feeling like they flunked out on day two. “How am I supposed to use treats if she doesn’t care about treats?”

Sam folds his arms again, damn again, so Bucky almost misses the answer. “Is she always picky?”

“Not at home,” Bucky says. “I don’t use treats that often, though.”

Sam nods. “One sec,” he says, and disappears behind a little kiosk nearby.

Bucky takes the opportunity to approach Redwing. He can get a better look at her now that Captain is calming down, a.k.a. watching the bird with intense focus but otherwise staying quiet. Redwing is pretty. She’s a little rainbow bird. “Hello,” Bucky says, then feels kind of dorky.

Redwing tilts her head, and since she’s a bird, she can tilt her head comically far. Bucky smiles and tries again. “Hello.”

Redwing whistles.

“Pretty bird?” Bucky asks.

Redwing doesn’t say it back. Bucky must have done it wrong. But instead, Redwing starts to bob her head, then stretches her neck until the feathers there all spread out.

“She wants a kiss.”

Bucky starts. He takes a step back, and looks over the bird to see Sam. He’s still behind the kiosk, sticking his head out and smiling at Redwing.

“She what?” Bucky asks stupidly.

“A kiss!” Sam says. “She wants to kiss you.”

Bucky blinks at Sam, then at the bird. He squints. Redwing bobs her head again. “Is your bird flirting with me?”

“ _Pretty bird!”_

“I don’t know how to kiss a bird,” Bucky says.

“Here.” Sam dumps a bunch of plastic bags onto the counter of the kiosk, then approaches Redwing’s perch. He does this little impressive flick with his hand, and all of a sudden, he’s holding Redwing on two fingers. She seems indifferent about being manhandled. Still watching Bucky, she bobs her head. “Come here,” Sam says.

“Me?”

As if in answer, Sam holds Redwing up at eye level. Bucky steps close. He feels Captain bump against his leg, and glances at her to make sure she’s being good. When they make eye contact, she sits.

"Good girl," Buck says, turning back to Redwing.

“Is this okay?” Sam asks, stretching his arm to get Redwing a little closer.

Eyeing her closely, Bucky wonders if he should be uncomfortable. It hadn’t occurred to him to be uncomfortable, but there _is_ a bird coming at his face. “Yeah?”

“Lean in closer.”

Bucky does.

Sam reaches over to the side of Bucky’s face, and he can’t see Redwing anymore. Bucky watches Sam instead. When he makes eye contact, Sam’s eyes flick back to Redwing, smiling with his lips parted just a little. Bucky can’t help but smile, too.

Then something cool and chalky touches his cheek.

“Good girl!” Sam says, voice jumping up a delighted octave. “Kisses!”

Redwing whistles.

With a giddy swoop in his stomach, Bucky turns to look at Redwing. “She kissed me on the cheek!”

“ _I_ taught her that one,” Sam says smugly. Grinning, he returns the bird to her perch.

“So are you a bird whisperer or a dog whisperer?”

Sam stops, looks over his shoulder, and makes a face. “Why can’t I be both?”

Yeah, God. Bucky didn’t think of that. Obviously. People can have multiple talents, like Steve, the artist-slash-dog-groomer, or Bucky’s mother, the lawyer-slash-amateur-golfer, or Sam, who’s clearly passionate about birds and dogs, or Sam’s fucking bird, for that matter, who berates people but also gives them kisses. Bucky’s surrounded by talented people. It really takes the pressure off.

“Here, I got a bunch to try,” Sam says, back at the kiosk.

Bucky snaps out of his little fuzzy moment of this-is-why-you-need-a-counselor. “Bunch of what?” he asks.

“Treats!” Sam holds up two different types of dog treats. There are at least four other varieties on the counter.

They start with something bacon-flavored that’s shaped like bacon. “Dogs go nuts for these,” Sam claims.

Bucky believes it, at first; soon as the bag opens, Captain’s eyes are instantly big old dinner plates. She even whines a little. And she’s so good for those treats, you’d never know she was Bucky’s dog at all; you’d never know she once chewed up the leg of a coffee table or that she routinely greets Steve Rogers by sticking her nose up his butt.

She sits on the ground so hard it practically cracks.

Sam laughs. “Oh, you want one? You want a treat?”

Captain’s half-tail swishes so fast it looks like a little fan.

Sam relinquishes a treat. Instantly, Captain snags it out of his hand, holds it in her mouth, drops it on the ground, licks it, and then does another enthusiastic earthquake sit, staring expectantly at the treat bag.

“You didn’t even eat that one!” Bucky cries. “Cap, come on.” He kicks the treat toward her, but she only gives it a cursory glance before staring at Sam, again.

“Okay,” Sam says. “I got other good ones. Let’s see. Crunchy ones? Here, smell.”

Bucky waits for Captain to do something. After a couple seconds he frowns. “What—” he begins, and looks at Sam—but Sam is already looking right at _him_.

Bucky blinks. “What?”

“I meant you,” Sam says, and half his face smiles while the other half raises an eyebrow. “Here, smell these treats.”

Perhaps surprisingly, Bucky has never spent much time smelling dog treats. “Are you messing with me?”

“Just smell, man.”

Sam holds the little green bag out, and Bucky sniffs.

“Oh my god!” Bucky exclaims. “They smell like apples.”

Sam throws his head back and laughs. “I’m saying!”

“You didn’t say anything, man!” Bucky cries. “You just held out a bag and go ‘sniff’ like that’s fuckin’ normal!”

Even though he’s laughing, Sam nods, too. “I wasn’t playing no tricks,” he says. “I love these treats, and nobody believes me when I say they smell like apples.”

Captain barks, and jumps on Sam, nose pointed toward the treat bag.

“No! Cap, off!” Bucky tugs on her leash to get her off her own freaking teacher. She sits and wags her turbo tail.

“It’s fine,” Sam says. “Don’t use her leash to tell her what to do. Just talk to her. She’ll learn.”

“Oh.”

“Right?” Sam looks at Captain. “You’ll learn! You’re smart! Do you want a treat?”

Captain barks.

“No ma’am,” Bucky says, and at the same time, Sam goes, “Hush.”

She lets out a little harumph.

While Bucky laughs, Sam offers her the treat. This time, she just sniffs it, doesn’t even take it or lick it or put on a show.

“What else you got?” Bucky asks.

“Hold on, man, gimme a second,” Sam says. “ _She’s_ more patient than _you_ are.”

“You have no idea.”

Sam raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t question it. Without taking his gaze off of Bucky, he grabs another bag of treats. “These are salmon,” he explains. “They’re all meat ingredients, and there’s only like 3 ingredients, so you know they’re tasty.”

“Do you?” Bucky asks innocently. “You taste test them yourself?”

“Hilarious,” Sam deadpans. “Captain!”

She’s starting to lose focus. This time, she glances at Sam, but seems way more interested in sniffing the boxy base of Redwing’s perch.

“Captain!” Sam says again, more high-pitched. “Captain dog, do you want a treat?”

She wags her butt and sits for him.

“Good girl!”

This time, when Sam hands her a treat, Captain snuffles it, takes it, spits it on the floor, licks it, looks at Sam, licks it again, looks at Bucky, and then—

“She ate it!” Bucky cries.

Sam bursts into laughter.

Ever a prima donna, Captain leaps off the ground and tries to kiss Bucky right on the face. “Ptfh!!” he says. “Off. Jesus, off.”

Sam is still laughing. God, he has a nice laugh. He’s probably laughing at Bucky, but hey, Bucky’s willing to make a fool of himself on the regular if that’s the reward. And he makes a fool of himself on the regular, anyway. So.

“I told you,” Sam says. "Those ones are great."

“You’re the expert,” Bucky counters, “since you’ve tasted them all.”

This time Sam doesn’t laugh, he just gives Bucky one of those weary-eyed deadpan looks.

And that’s fine too, Bucky likes that face, too. Dammit. He’s gotta go home and Google “how to flirt” or something, because Sam is so right, Bucky’s not patient enough for this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> redwing is a sun conure, by the way. i forget if i mentioned that yet. their speech is really limited, but i figure with an awesome owner like sam, she could pull off a couple good phrases.


	3. Chapter 3

By their third lesson, Bucky’s kind of getting the hang of the store. He’s figured out a routine.

(Also, Captain will come through the front door, now. Progress.)

So. Routine. 

First, they stop at the cash register and get a treat from Maria, which Captain spits out. 

“She’s picky,” Bucky apologizes. He doesn’t have a free hand, or else he would get out the salmon treats from his pocket. But at least the dog sat down.

The second thing they do is say hi to Steve. Bucky guides Captain past all the cat paraphernalia, and toward the side-room they never got to see during their first visit. It’s the grooming salon, Bucky learned later. While Captain sniffs a bin of squeak toys shaped like dessert foods, Bucky pokes his head around and shouts, “hey, Steve!”

“Bucky! Hi!”

Steve’s hair is sticking in every direction, and there is dog hair everywhere. Just, everywhere. The floor, Steve’s smock, the empty table next to Steve—basically, everything is covered in poodle fur except for the poodle panting in front of Steve on the little grooming stand. 

“Nice hair,” Bucky says.

“Me, or Maggie?”

The dog wags her tail when Steve says her name.

“Does she have any left?”

“She looks pretty!” Steve protests.

“Yeah, for a poodle.”

“She’s a goldendoodle.”

Bucky squints. “Never heard of it.”

Steve laughs. He never explains, either, and Bucky suspects he might be messing with him.

After hitting up the grooming salon, Bucky and Captain head to the back of the store. The “exotic” side, Steve calls it, since it’s full of non-traditional pets like cockatiels and ferrets and Chinese water dragons and Redwing. Redwing isn’t for sale, of course. She’s kind of like a very clever, slightly obnoxious marketing tool. According to Steve, they’ve sold a few more conures since putting Redwing’s perch out in public.

“Only a few?” Bucky had asked the other night while they lounged in his living room.

Steve had been sitting in the old blue armchair, absently throwing tennis balls down the hallway for Captain to fetch. “Yeah,” he had said. “They’re not flying out the doors. No pun intended.”

“None taken,” Bucky says, rolling his eyes. “So Redwing’s not a good salesman?”

“She’s great,” Steve says. “But Sam still won’t sell birds to losers.”

“What does he do, turn people down?”

“No, no,” Steve had said. “He starts going on and on about bird care, and which enormous cage they need, and listing off supplemental diets, and how loud they scream and shit. Literally, shit. Once he starts talking about all the bird shit they have to clean, he can scare most people off the impulse-buy.”

Captain had interrupted with a bark.

“Oh, sorry, I’m not ignoring you, I promise.” Steve had said. “Where’s your ball?”

In response, Captain had picked up the tennis ball and dropped it out of arm’s reach. And of course, when Steve had reached for it, she had grabbed it away from him.

That had pretty much been the end of the conversation, since Captain changed the subject, and all. Bucky wasn’t complaining, though. Despite wanting to talk about Sam (constantly), he also knows if he does it too much, Steve will start to catch on. And tease him. Or worse, try to set them up.

Anyway.

Redwing’s perch has turned into the meeting-spot for Bucky’s lessons, and today, when he and Captain arrive, Redwing is waiting. She whistles at them.

_ “Pretty bird!” _

“Pretty bird,” Bucky agrees, holding a finger out. She bobs her head really fast. Mildly freaked out, Bucky draws his hand back. She’s nice. She gives kisses and all. But that beak is big.

“Where’s Sam?” Bucky asks.

_ “Pretty bird!” _

He’s talking to a fucking parrot. “Look at me, Captain,” he says. “I’m talking to a fucking parrot.”

Apparently, Captain doesn’t have a sense of irony. She also isn’t paying attention. At the end of a taut leash, she has her nose pointed into the back corner of the store. 

“Oh, look what you found,” Bucky says. He follows Captain’s nose around a shelving unit. The walls are a giant corner of fish tanks, eight feet tall, rows of colorful twenty-gallon acrylic containers. 

As usual, Bucky categorizes the details first. The bags of gravel stacked under the tanks, the clunky rolling cart with a stash of jumbled fish supplies on top and a hermit crab poster on the front, and the colors. Bucky takes a step closer: even the fish are organized by colors of the rainbow. As he wanders around the supply cart, Bucky notices another detail: the backside of a man bent over the bottom row of fish tanks, and next to him, seated down low on a footstool, Sam Wilson.

“Look, you can see some in the back,” a strange voice says. 

“There’s one right in front, too,” Sam says. Bucky gazes at him, glances back at his dog, who seems preoccupied by a bag of sand, then looks back at Sam. He’s on a very low footstool, so his folded-up knees come almost to his chin.

Bucky doesn’t recognize the other man. He’s in a red polo, and he has brown hair, and he seems deeply enthralled by the fish.

“There, there!” The man throws out an arm and grips Sam’s thigh. “Look, there’s more!”

“They’re too fast, man!” Sam says. “I can’t count them!” An easy smile blossoms on his face, which Bucky notices, but he’s also real focused on that hand on Sam’s thigh.

Something pulls tight around his chest, around his shoulders, like a lasso.

It’s Captain tugging on the leash.

She whines, trying to get closer to Sam.

“Captain, you  _ know _ him—”

“Oh, I’m  _ so _ sorry,” the fish-employee says, springing away from Sam like he’s been shocked. His voice leaps into his sinuses when he says, “Is there anything I can help you with?”

It’s the most impressive and complete 180 he’s ever witnessed. As always, Bucky is super grateful he doesn’t work in customer service.

“Did you have any questions about the fish?” the man prompts. He has a thick accent, something familiar, but not something Bucky would presume to pinpoint.

“No,” Bucky says quickly. “No, it’s fine, you’re fine. I’m with Sam.”

The fish-employee blinks at Bucky, and then his eyes scan over to Sam, who stands up and sticks his hands in his pockets.

A handful of gravel drops into Bucky’s stomach. “I mean, uh,” he swallows. “I’m not  _ with _ Sam. I’m just—we’re together.”

The stranger squints.

“Not like that!” Bucky says quickly. “Not together. We’re just—meeting here. In this … area. At the same time.”

Sam and the new guy don’t speak. 

“Sorry,” Bucky stutters. He twists Captain’s leash around his hand. “I just meant, you know, I’m not just some customer.”

“Um.”

“Not—I mean, I  _ am _ a customer,” Bucky says, because he no longer has control over what comes out of his mouth at all. “Because, like, I’m not an employee. Obviously. Which you obviously know. Already. So I’m a customer. By … process of elimination.”

There’s a black hole forming in Bucky’s stomach and it’s slowly sapping him of normal biological functions. Literally. Air just wringing out of him. It’s like, like when people die and they say they can see a whole timeline of their life strung along a thread, but for Bucky it’s just every humiliating moment he’s ever endured and lived to regret. He feels like Sam can see each humiliating moment written on Bucky’s face, even.

Plus this new guy. Who is this guy? And how is he also hot?

Bucky clears his throat and licks his lips. “So, you like fish.”

“Hi, Bucky,” Sam says. His voice sounds weak. Like maybe he only half-heartedly wants to admit he knows Bucky’s name. “This is Riley.”

“I’m Bucky.”

Riley raises his eyebrows. “So I heard.”

“Right.” Bucky doesn’t know what else to say, which is fine, because at that point, Captain barks, finally, after tugging on the leash this whole time and not getting the attention she craves. 

“Captain dog!” Sam trills. The expression on Sam’s face when he looks at Captain is a flower blooming in fast-motion. “You remember me, don’t you? We’re friends, aren’t we?”

Captain whines and shoves her nose in his crotch.

“Oh my God,” Riley exclaims (and Bucky braces himself). “Oh my god, your dog has three legs.”

“Um.”

“I love him.” Riley bends at the waist and holds a hand out to Captain, who sniffs him enthusiastically. “What’s his name?”

“Captain,” Bucky says.

“That’s amazing. He’s perfect. I mean—is it a he?”

“Uh, she,” Bucky says. “But I mean. Not like she cares.”

Riley throws his head back and laughs. “So real. This dog is literally me.”

Sam chuckles.

Bucky tries to laugh, too, but Captain is his soul mate, and all, so that’s weird. His face must show his confusion, because Riley shrugs and taps a knuckle against his knee. “Prosthetic.”

“Oh— _ oh _ —” Bucky stutters, feeling stupid.

It’s fine though, Riley is still enthralled with Captain, who is licking his hands and wagging her whole butt, now.

When Riley looks up at Sam, his eyes sparkle. “Wow, I love him. He’s me. Oh my God, Sam, now all I can think about is a three-legged Havanese.”

“Yeah?” The look on Sam’s face is the same look he gets for puppies and happy dogs.

“Sammy, you have to find me a three-legged Havanese.”

“That’s really specific,” Sam says, smiling.

“I need it.”

“Anything for you.”

Bucky can feel his ribs clench.

Laughing, Riley kisses Captain on top of her head. “I need a three-legged Havanese named Desi. Or Gloria. I could name it Juice!”

“You don’t want to name it Pitbull?” Sam asks lightly.

Riley pushes himself up and rolls his eyes. “I hate you.”

“Love you too.”

"Pitbull doesn't represent me," Riley says.

Sam smiles in this cheesy fake way. "He does though."

"I know," Riley sighs. "I love it and I hate it."

“You love it,” Sam says, then adds, pointedly,  _ “Hi, _ Bucky!”

“Hi," Bucky says, forcing a smile. "Um. Captain's popular!"

Sam reaches around for his treat pouch and asks her to sit. “That’s because she’s such a good girl!”

“Yeah.” Bucky’s stomach isn’t just tying into knots, it’s a whole clump of tangled yarn. 

“Ready for lesson number three?”

Bucky clenches and unclenches his hand around the leash. “Yeah, I guess,” he says in a voice he barely recognizes as his own. 

“Captain’s gonna learn leash-walking!” Sam says. He turns back to Riley. “Hey, I’ll see you afterwards, alright?”

“Yeah, go do your thing,” Riley says with a smile. He digs around in a drawer of his counter and retrieves a sponge. “Go make the puppies smart.”

“Are we still doing tonight?” Sam asks.

Bucky holds his breath.

“Oh, um,” Riley stutters and looks toward the front of the store. “I mean, we’ll talk about it later. Go do your thing.” He smiles at Bucky. “It was nice meeting you!”

“Yeah, sorry my dog’s a maniac.”

Riley is still laughing when they leave.

Today, Sam teaches Captain how to walk on a leash politely. It’s called “loose-leash-walking” and it entails walking at a normal pace while the dog does none of the following: 1) pull on the leash; 2) trip their owner; 3) stop to sniff every remotely interesting item they pass; or 4) randomly stop, lay down, and stare at the owner like “I decided we’re done even though we’re exactly halfway along our walking route.” In other words, loose-leash-walking is the opposite of Captain.

The way Sam describes it, all you have to do is talk to your dog and tell them to stay with you. Bucky doesn’t expect that to work very well, considering how Captain shuts off her ears whenever they put on her leash or leave the house.

“Here, I’ll demonstrate,” Sam says. When he takes the leash from Bucky, their hands brush. Bucky feels the very blood in his veins shudder.

Dear _fuck,_ Bucky has watched too many fucking rom-coms.

It sounds fake until it actually happens. Fingers brushing. Please. Dammit, Bucky does not have a crush on a guy with a  _ boyfriend. _ That is not happening.

“Captain, come.” Sam says, his voice somewhat distant. “Good girl!”

Sam and Captain are half-done with their demo when Bucky snaps back to reality.

On the way back to Bucky, Sam keeps making this weird snapping sound. Bucky sees something in his hand. “Are you snapping your fingers?”

“It’s a clicker,” Sam explains. He hands Captain’s leash back to Bucky right as she jumps on him. (“Off!” Bucky says.) Sam holds up the clicker. “It lets Captain know when she does the right thing.”

“Oh, so that’s why I haven’t seen it till now,” Bucky jokes.

Sam laughs. “Nah, it just—I like using clickers,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just, usually my customers don’t care about it? They’re like, ‘it’s so hard to coordinate the leash and the treats and the clicker, and …” Sam trails off and his eyes dart away from Bucky. “They usually lose it by the second week, anyway.”

“That would go super well with one hand.” Bucky starts to giggle just thinking about it. Picturing himself digging in his pockets whenever Captain does something good, and then by the time he finds a treat or a clicker she’s doing something bad.

Sam smiles weakly and looks at his feet. “Yeah.” Then he perks up. “You know, you can use a word the same way,” he says. “Instead of a clicker, you can say a word every time you give her a treat. Every time she does something good. You could say ‘yes’ or ‘good’ or something.”

“Hey Captain,” Bucky says, and his dog’s ears flick up. “Sit!”

She does. 

“Yes!” Bucky says, and gives her a treat. “I dunno, that’s a lot to remember.”

“You guys are good,” Sam says, staring at Captain with a soft smile. “Hey, listen. How about you practice walking around the store?”

So that’s how they spend the rest of the lesson. Bucky walks Captain—or, actually, it’s more like Bucky takes one step; Captain darts to the end of the leash; Bucky calls her back; sometimes she comes back, and he gives her a treat and says “yes.” Then he takes another step and they do it all over again.

It’s exhausting.

Not least because Sam hovers behind them the whole time. Bucky can feel Sam’s eyes on him, and he can feel that awkward center-of-attention stiffness in all his limbs. At one point, Bucky and Captain make it down three aisles in a row without dragging each other or tripping each other. 

“Yeah, oh my god! That’s it!” Sam says, and he gives Bucky’s good shoulder a light shove. “She’s getting the hang of it!”

Sam smiles at Captain, all bright-white-gap-toothed grinning like he’s genuinely impressed. Bucky has to avert his eyes.

“She’s just getting tired,” Bucky says, but he’s kind of smiling, too.

When Sam turns that smile on Bucky instead of Captain, he really can’t take it. Speaking of black holes in his stomach. 

Steve is a huge jerk. Honestly. Setting Bucky up for five hours of alone-time with a hot guy who makes flower-blossom-eyes at dogs and teaches birds how to kiss. And the guy has a boyfriend, for crying out loud. 

On the plus side, Bucky doesn’t have to feel stupid about embarrassing himself every single time they meet. He can just be himself.

“See, you don’t even need a clicker!” Sam adds.

“Yeah,” Bucky says slowly. “Or I could have you follow me around and do the clicker for me.”

Sam gives him the cute exasperated deadpan look. 

Captain whimpers and scoots really close to Sam, sitting at his feet and wriggling her tail—and her whole butt. She looks at Sam like he could do anything.

“Aw, Cap,” Sam says. “I would do that for  _ her,” _ he answers Bucky. “Just for her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> designer dogs are the bane of my existence, man. you've never really Cringed until a middle-aged suburban white lady tells you about her "purebred goldendoodle" -_-
> 
> hey i love you guys this doesnt count as angst


	4. Chapter 4

After the lesson, when Bucky meanders back to the front of the store, he finds Steve behind the cash register, elbows on the counter, bent over a magazine. Bucky seems to be the last customer in the store. A sunslanted glow bathes the front room, tints it in multicolors from Steve’s chalk-drawings. At this golden indefinable time of day, Bucky gets the appeal. Maybe he’ll look into animal sciences when he signs up for Fall classes.

“Hey!” Steve calls out. “How was the lesson?”

Captain starts whimpering as soon as she hears Steve, and she tugs on her end of the leash.

“Good,” Bucky grunts. “We learned how to walk on a leash.”

Steve stares. Then he starts laughing. “So Captain is teaching you real good, huh?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, speeding up to keep pace with his dog. “I’m clearly the one who’s doing it wrong.” 

“She’s just excited about going out tonight!” Steve says, eyes following the dog. “Isn’t that right, Captain?”

Bucky takes a deep breath and mumbles, “That makes one of us.”

“I’m all set,” Steve says, shimmying out from behind the counter. “Just gotta shut off lights and lock doors.”

“I dunno,” Bucky says automatically. “Maybe I should just take Captain home …”

“Oh no no no, nope, no you don’t,” Steve says, folding his arms. “We talked about this. There’s a patio at the bar, and I checked to make sure they’re dog-friendly. You don’t get any excuses, you’re coming out. We just have to wait for everyone else.”

Bucky wraps Captain’s leash around his hand a couple times to pull her closer. “What do you mean ‘everyone else’?”

Steve looks over his shoulder, shrugs, and jabs a thumb toward the second room of the shop. Bucky can just barely hear Riley and Redwing whistling to each other.

“Wait, Sam and Riley are coming with us?!”

“… Is that weird?” Steve says. “We go out after work all the time.”

“Steve,” Bucky begins, voice firm. “Sam hates me.”

“Sam doesn’t hate you.”

“Yes he does!”

“Well, what did you do to him?”

“Nothing!” Bucky says automatically. He closes his eyes to gather himself. He always has to gather all the forces to argue with Steve. “He hates me because my dog almost ate his bird.”

Steve rolls his eyes and waves his hand dismissively. “Redwing is fine.”

_ “Sam _ is fine,” Bucky mumbles. He thought it was under his breath, but Steve bursts into laughter.

“So  _ that’s _ why you don’t want to go out with him!” Steve accuses. “Because you want to go  _ out _ with him.”

“No,” Bucky says. Riley and Sam are a thing, and Bucky has come to terms with that, and he’s not gonna think about it. At all. “Nope. Leave me alone.”

“Now we’re  _ definitely _ going out,” Steve says, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter. “How else are you gonna flirt with Sam?”

Bucky rolls his eyes and sinks to one knee on the floor. Captain wiggles into his face and snuffles his neck. “Thanks,” Bucky tells her. 

“Come on, Buck! Live a little!” Steve says. The light of the world is in his eyes. He’s got himself psyched up about life and all that. Fuckin Steve. “You definitely have to come to the bar and you definitely have to flirt with Sam.”

“But Steve—”

“It’s perfect!” Steve declares. “I need a chance to flirt with Riley, anyway!”

Bucky’s brain backfires. He frowns at Steve, like, for real baffled by the whole thing. It’s one thing to tease a friend, but it’s another thing to actively go about splitting couples up, and shit. The first one, Steve would definitely do. The second one? Never. “Steve … you can’t do that to Sam!”

Steve blinks. “I don’t wanna do anything to Sam,” he says. “I wanna do things to _ Riley.” _ His eyes glass over. “God … so many things.”

“Gross, first of all,” Bucky says. “Second, like, slow down, I just—are they in an open relationship, or something?”

Steve’s face goes blank. Then it twists up and looks about as confused as Bucky feels. “Sam and Riley?”

“Yeah?”

Beat.

Steve bursts into laughter.

“Okay,” Bucky grumbles. He fluffs his fingers through Captain’s fur. “Okay, now you’re just laughing at me like I’m stupid.”

“No, it’s not that,” Steve says, wiping his eyes. “It’s just—Sam and Riley aren’t together. Like, at all. Ever.”

“Oh,” Bucky says. His voice floats out a little more light than normal. He scratches Captain’s ear and processes this new information. 

“I’m not laughing at you,” Steve assures him. “I’m laughing at … the thought of Sam and Riley together. It’s just …” He dissolves into more giggles.

"Are you sure?" Bucky asks.

"Very," Steve confirms.

Bucky pets his dog thoughtfully.

He  _ could _ flirt with Sam.

Hypothetically.

Of course, Sam hates him, since Captain tried to eat Sam’s bird. And since Bucky and Cap are his worst students. And since Bucky lives with his foot in his mouth. But they can get past that. And Riley’s not a thing, even though they sure had easy chemistry going like it’s a big old thing. 

The point is, Bucky can flirt. Worst case scenario, Sam shuts it down. No big deal. Bucky’s real familiar with unsuccessful flirting. 

Just then, Sam and Riley burst into the front room of the store like a very exuberant and highly opinionated whirlwind. Bucky and Captain both tense up at the onslaught.

“... almost dropped the tank right on her toes,” Riley is saying. Riley talks with his hands. They’re everywhere, especially now, with his voice raised, his face slightly red. “Maybe it would have shattered everywhere and scared her kids out of the store.”

“You probably shouldn’t plot murders every time a spoiled rich kid comes in the store,” Sam allows.

“Three!” Riley cries. “Three spoiled rich kids! All under the age of ten!”

“Gross.”

“And they all just  _ needed _ a fish, Sammy,” Riley goes on. “I told her, you know, you gotta set up the tank first and you gotta run the filter for a few days, and she is saying, ‘well, I don’t want anything high maintenance, so we’ll just grab a bowl.’ What does that even mean, Sam? Fish are high maintenance! Nothing makes them not high maintenance!”

“And her kids screamin’ the whole time.”

_ “Yes!” _ Riley gasps, sounding downright desperate. “I even tell her, I say, ‘you need a twenty-gallon tank for goldfish.’ And do you know what she says back?” He turns to Steve, arms spread, eyes manic. “Do you know what she says to me?”

“What did she say?” Steve asks.

“She says ‘a fish bowl will be fine.’” Riley throws his hands in the air. “You are right, Susan, I have only worked here for two years in aquariums. You’re absolutely right. I am trying to upsell you to a bigger fish tank for the five-dollar profit. That’s it. Such a rip-off.”

Sam starts laughing and can’t seem to stop. Steve, on the other hand, looks both amused and sympathetic, like he’s endeared by Riley’s antics, but also thinking of all the ways he could make the situation better. That’s kind of Steve’s M.O.

“Did you sell her the fish?” Sam asks.

“Yes, leave me alone, and listen,” Riley says. He leads the way to the front door. “You got keys?” he interrupts himself. 

Steve holds them up and gives them a jingle, and after everyone else exits the store, he locks up behind them. 

“Listen,” Riley continues, “when she insists on a fish bowl, I say to her maybe she should try  _ one _ fish first to see how it does. Because it’s gonna die, obviously. Sticking a goldfish in a bowl. Fuck Hollywood, Sam. Fuck TV for making people think they can put my fish in a little bowl.”

“You can’t put a fish in a bowl?” Bucky asks.

Riley skids to a stop, spins in his tracks, and looks at Bucky like he suggested going to a frat party instead of a bar.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“Common misconception,” Sam says with a gentle smile.

“It’s fish mass murder is what it is,” Riley says. “I tried to talk her into one fish, but she wouldn’t listen. She just kept looking at her kids and saying they  _ have _ to have three.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have had three kids, Karen,” Sam says.

Bucky laughs.

He’s starting to relax. Riley is one of those people who is easy and real. He doesn’t have to go through some two-week period of tip-toeing and niceties before saying one curse-word in your presence and then apologizing for it, you know? He’s just himself. He’s friends with you the minute you meet.

As long as you’re not a wealthy white mom with too much money and too many kids and not enough respect for the customer service industry.

He’s also enthusiastic. 

Wow.

One second, he’s like, “Why is a customer coming to my store and telling me how fish works?” and the next second he’s all, “Steve, did you hear of the little salon in Crown Heights that dyes dog fur?” and when they’re still a block from the bar he’s like “First of all I’m gonna need a Long Island.”

Every once in awhile, in the middle of Riley’s ranting, Sam looks over his shoulder to make eye contact with Bucky. He bites his lip, smiles, rolls his eyes in a fond, he’s-really-something-else sort of way.

Bucky smiles back and raises his eyebrows.

They arrive at the bar while the sun sets. It's smaller on the inside than on the outside. They have a window you can order through, where Sam, Riley, Bucky, Steve, and Captain all get in line. Over the window, there’s a cheap security camera posted, and through the window, Bucky can see a row of TVs playing baseball highlights. The exterior wall is lined with license plates from a bunch of states. The patio has a wrought iron fence with two exits, both on the same side, facing the street. Bucky is still cataloguing details when they reach the front of the line.

Steve holds out a menu so they can both read it. There’s a bunch of drinks with color-themes. 

“It’s just like your store,” Bucky says absently.

Sam and Steve and Riley blink at him.

“It’s full of rainbows?” Bucky says.

Riley grins. “You’re welcome!”

“That’s all Riley’s fault,” Steve explains, and he’s talking to Bucky, but his soft smile is aimed at Riley. “The leash-collar display looks amazing.”

It’s very mushy. Bucky almost rolls his eyes.

“The fish took the longest,” Riley says. “When we started to carry the glow-in-the-dark fish, it threw everything off.”

“They look so pretty, though,” Steve says.

“Okay, lovebirds,” Bucky says.

“I’ll have a gin and tonic, please,” Sam tells the bartender, then turns back to his friends. “You know, lovebirds aren’t actually that nice, except to each other.”

“So … Steve and Riley,” Bucky says.

“I’m super nice!” Steve protests. “An old lady called me a _polite_ _young man_ the other day when I worked on her Papillon.”

“Was that before or after she tipped you?” Sam asks dryly.

Bucky snorts.

While he studies the menu, Captain starts to whine. She ping-pongs from Bucky to Riley to Steve, and eventually, she jumps full-tilt into Sam and about knocks the wind out of him.

“Jesus, Cap, chill!” Bucky says, reeling her in. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Her whimpers turn into a piercing bark.

“Okay, jeez, alright,” Bucky sighs. “Just get me something fruity, we’re gonna go find a seat where there’s no crowd.”

“Oh, you expect me to order for you?” Steve says, only gently angry. Not angry at all, actually. When Steve pretends to be angry, he can’t not smile. It’s cute. And annoying.

Kind of like Bucky’s dog.

It takes Captain awhile to calm down. Sam brings her a paper cup of water when he joins them, and half an hour later, she finally relaxes under the table while they finish their second round.

Their table is small, especially with three huge military vets and Steve crammed around on all sides, and it wobbles a little whenever Riley puts his elbows down. Their shoulders press together in a warm circle. Seated between Sam and Steve, Bucky follows the aimless conversation, and frequently uses Captain as an excuse not to look deep into Sam’s eyes, even when he tells an animated story about a customer who wanted him to sex underage parakeets. (“No, lady, I  _ can’t _ guarantee it’s a boy and a girl. They’re three months old.”) Bucky watches Sam’s mouth while he tells the story. Sam shows his teeth a lot when he talks. When Bucky’s gaze drifts to Steve, he catches Steve staring at him.  _ Pointedly. _

Bucky kicks Steve’s shin under the table, reaches down to pet Captain, and ignores the way his cheeks light up on fire.

“So, Bucky!” Steve says brightly. A little too brightly. Bucky braces himself. “Have you thought about what you’re gonna study in the Fall?”

Bucky exhales. He even smiles a little. Steve is a punk, but he’s not mean, you know? “Not really,” Bucky shrugs. “Just core credits I guess.”

“You going back to school, man?” Sam asks, leaning forward.

“Yeah, I guess,” Bucky says, looking at the salt shaker. “Get everything I can out of the army.”

“That’s … that’s cool, man,” Sam says. It comes out like a sigh. From the corner of his eye, Bucky can tell Sam is still watching him, and he can’t really muster the courage to look back. 

“Bucky’s gonna study something smart like science or something,” Steve says.

Now, Steve, on the other hand, Bucky’s not afraid to look at Steve. He levels him with a weary glare. “I’m a real genius,” Bucky deadpans. "I should have joined the Red Cross, like you."

Steve shakes his head. "Fucking asthma."

"Don't even," Bucky says, rolling his eyes. “Boot camp was  _such_ a smart choice right out of high school.”

“Hey, I did it, too.”

Bucky looks up at Riley. His cheeks heat up. “Yeah, sorry.”

Riley shrugs. “It’s fine,” he says. “This is what alcohol is for.” He slides the little laminated drink menu out from under a salt shaker. He leans into Sam’s space and runs a finger down the menu. “Go order one of these for me, Sammy.”

“You already had two,” Sam protests. Sort of; it’s not a strong protest. Their shoulders are touching, and he always kind of smiles when Riley is talking to him. 

“I don’t work tomorrow,” Riley says. “I will be drinking whatever I want, tonight.”

“Okay,” Sam says, “You know where the bar is.”

“Sammy,” Riley whines. “It will take me forever to  _ limp _ over there.”

“You moved just fine for the first two rounds.”

“After everything I have done for my country …"

“Oh, you can’t pull that on me.” Sam leans back and holds his hands up. “Not all of us chopped off a limb for a Purple Heart, alright?”

“Wait,” Riley says, sitting up straight, his face somber. “Sam Wilson, are you saying you have a Purple _Heart?”_

Sam scowls. Steve throws his head back and laughs.

“I had no idea,” Riley says, enunciating like an opera singer.

“Very funny,” Sam says.

“You need to tell the story to me, sometime,” Riley says. “I love new stories that I have never heard before, ever.”

“You mean the story where you got your ass kicked out of the sky,” Sam asks, “and I had to save all the stupid limbs you had left?”

“And now both of our therapists will be hearing about it for many years,” Riley says.

Steve, still cackling, falls against Riley. “Oh my god.”

While everyone laughs, Captain scoots close and smacks her paw in Bucky’s lap. She lets out a pitiful whine.

“Hush,” Bucky says. “You’re fine.”

She smacks him again and whimpers again.

“Here,” Sam says, and when Bucky looks up, Sam is holding out a handful of dog treats.

Bucky blinks. “Do you just take these everywhere?”

“Kinda comes with the job,” Sam shrugs. “You should see how many dog treats I find in my laundry.”

Now Bucky is just thinking about Sam’s laundry, which makes him blush, which is the stupidest reason to blush, honestly. He gives Captain a treat.

Meanwhile, Steve lifts his head off Riley’s shoulder and bumps him gently. “Hey, Riley, how about I go get you that drink?” Steve offers. “What one did you want?”

“Yes!” Riley grins. He looks at Sam. “See, Steve is a gentleman.” Then he turns back to Steve. “Listen, I will go with you. We can both get drinks.”

He glances at Steve’s glass, which is half-full. 

“Great idea,” Steve says, and chugs the rest of whatever turquoise drink he’d last ordered.

Riley and Steve get to their feet.

“Wait, you’re just going up there after all?” Sam says. “What happened to noble sacrifices and limping and shit?”

“Shut up, Sam,” Riley says; his eyes are on Steve. “I am making sure Steve gets my order right.”

Captain whines and starts to crawl in Bucky’s lap. He nudges her off. “Yeah, they’re being really obvious, I know, Cap.”

She snuffles into his pants, and Bucky slips her another treat.

When Bucky looks up, he finds Sam leaning back in his chair, gazing after Steve and Riley with a soft smile on his face.

Bucky clears his throat. “So, um. How do I get her to relax in crowds?” As soon as he says it, he winces. Only he would talk business at a bar with a cute guy.

Sam perks up, turning back to Bucky and leaning on the table. He frowns. A couple thoughtful lines wrinkle between his eyes. “Well,” he says, “you’d have to take her out to more crowds, honestly.”

“Oh.”

Bucky looks at his dog. She paws at him again.

More crowds. Because that’s something Bucky and his dog would both definitely enjoy.

“Comes from practice,” Sam shrugs. “Just like anything. You can’t train for it without just  _ doing _ it. Customers never believe me. You don’t get a good dog without going through the gauntlet.”

“Gauntlet?”

“Six months to two years,” Sam says, and laughs at himself. “Good behavior comes with age.”

“Wish that would work with Steve.”

Sam blinks at him, then laughs again, more open. His gaze drifts back toward the bar. Following his eyes, Bucky finds Steve and Riley in the middle of a crowd of dancers. They’re face-to-face and very close and basically have their clothes off, already.

“They’re nuts, man,” Bucky says, shaking his head. “I can’t dance like that.”

“I’m shocked,” Sam says, but he’s smiling.

“Oh, hey now,” Bucky says defensively. “I said I couldn’t dance like _ that. _ I never said I couldn’t dance at  _ all.” _

Sam nods. His eyes flick over Bucky's chest. “Oh, okay. You gonna show me your moves?”

"Yeah, right," Bucky says, chuckling. “What would I do with Captain?”

“... True,” Sam smiles down at the table. He pushes his drink a couple inches to the left. “Good point.”

Bucky looks at the dog. “You can’t come next time, pup.”

“So, it was nice hanging out, man,” Sam says, tracing a finger through the condensation on the table. “But I should get going, you know?”

“Oh.” Bucky glances over at Riley and Steve. They’re not dancing anymore, but they’re still kind of swaying together, talking. Riley’s hands wave with whatever story he’s telling, and Steve has his hand on the small of Riley’s back. “Yeah, I mean. It’s late.”

“It’s ten,” Sam corrects him. “But I want to grab Redwing from the store.”

“Right,” Bucky rolls his shoulder. “We can, uh. Do it again sometime?”

Sam looks up, finally. He smiles, then pulls his bottom lip between his teeth. “I’ll see you for the next lesson, right?”

“... Right.” Pressure starts to fill Bucky’s chest, like a little air bubble growing and taking up too much space in his ribcage. Captain shakes her head and sticks her paw in his lap. “What are we learning at the next lesson?” Bucky asks.

Sam stands up and adjusts the waistband of his jeans. “Um, let me—let me think,” Sam says, and rubs the back of his next. “I can’t remember. How about I text you?”

“Text me?”

“When I check the lesson plan?” Sam says, digging in his back pocket for his phone. He glances at Bucky, then back at the screen. 

Bucky clears his throat, then just goes for it. “You want my number?”

“Already got it.”

Bucky blinks, the pressure in his chest spreading to his stomach. “You have my number saved in your phone?”

“Sure,” Sam says. He seems engrossed with something on his phone. “You’re in my contacts as ‘Captain Bucky.’”

“I’m just a Sergeant, but thanks,” Bucky says, definitely not blushing in the slightest at all.

“Your dog, man,” Sam says. He finally looks up to smile at Bucky, a soft smile, like he’s not thinking about it.

Bucky is sure thinking about it. “What about my dog?”

Sam laughs. “Your dog. In my contacts. I saved you as ‘Captain Bucky’ so I would remember who y’all are.”

“Oh.”

“I save all my students with the dog name, too,” Sam says. “Most of the time that’s the only name I remember.”

Bucky’s heart feels a little like the soggy maraschino cherry at the bottom of his glass. “That’s funny,” he lies.

“Don’t worry,” Sam says, and claps Bucky on the shoulder. “I remember your name, too, Becky.”

“Awesome,” Bucky says weakly.

“See you next time,” Sam says, and heads for the gate in the wrought-iron fence.

“See you.” Bucky watches him unlatch the swinging door and watches his hips angle to get out and watches him stroll down the street. The bright pinprick of Sam’s phone screen stands out against the dark concrete.

Bucky slumps in his chair. A quick scan of the crowd of dancers doesn’t do him any good. He can’t even see Steve and Riley, anymore. Inside or in a bathroom or already on their way home, probably. Bucky doesn’t really want to think about Steve’s sex life, especially in such stark contrast with his own. He bends over, props his elbow on his knee, and looks at Captain. Basking in the attention, she squirms up to kiss him right on the mouth.

“Pfft.” Bucky wipes his lips on his sleeve. “Gross. Thanks, Cap.”

She barks.

“No bark,” he says. “I guess we oughta go, too, huh?”

Bucky lives about six blocks away. It’s not the nicest walk, but Bucky’s hardly afraid of Red Hook. Besides, no one is ever gonna sneak up on Captain. He’s two streets from home when he feels his phone buzz in his pocket. His hand full with the dog, he doesn’t check it right away. Instead, he makes his way home, unlocks the exterior gate, and squeezes through the entryway to his little ground-floor apartment. 

After he removes Captain’s leash, hangs it on a command hook, and toes off his shoes onto the tile floor, he digs his phone out of his pocket.

One text from an unknown 646 number. All it says is  _ “Sam.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sam and bucky are both a certifiable mess, don't let either of them fool you.


	5. Chapter 5

“Captain, sit,” Bucky says clearly.

Captain sits.

“Captain, stay.” He holds up his hand, spreading his fingers as much as he can while also holding the treat.

Captain swishes her little half-tail, but otherwise doesn’t move.

That’s when Bucky gets cocky. He takes a step back, just with one foot, and as soon as it lands on the ground, Captain gets up and scoots toward him. “No,” he says gently. “Nope, start over.”

“Good, that was … pretty good,” Sam says. “But don’t move, yet. She needs to learn to sit still, first.”

“She never sits still.”

“That’s why you’re _teaching_ her, man.”

Bucky shoots him a square-jawed look for lack of a witty comeback. He turns his attention back to Captain and sets up. Loops the leash around his wrist, gets a treat out of his pocket, and holds it up where the dog can see. She automatically sits most of the time, now, so he says “sit” right about the same time her butt hits the ground.

“Captain, stay.”

Her tail dusts the floor.

Bucky breathes in and out. The dog doesn’t move. They’re both starting to get antsy, though. He glances up and catches Sam’s eyes.

Sam raises both eyebrows.

“Good girl!” Bucky says. He gives Captain the treat, and she immediately breaks position and wriggles up close, like she’s just so pumped she did the right thing that she can’t contain herself.

Bucky looks up at Sam, again. They make eye contact for the briefest second before Sam flicks his gaze back to Captain. He’s smiling, though.

“That was great,” Sam says. “She’s really gonna learn fast, man.”

“So that’s what we’re supposed to work on?” Bucky asks. “Practicing stay?”

“Yeah, get her to ‘stay’ really reliably. But you aren't supposed to move!"

Bucky ruffles Captain's fur. "Yeah, okay."

"'Stay' is hard," Sam says. "Don't push it. It’s the toughest thing on the test.”

“Test?” Bucky’s hand goes still.

“The test,” Sam says again, raising just one eyebrow, this time. “Next week? It’s our last week, so she does a test and gets a certificate.”

Bucky can actually feel his eyes get cold, he stares so hard. Training is almost over. Somehow a month just went by in about two days, and Bucky’s not ready to be done at all. First, his dog is still pretty crazy, and second, this means he won’t get to see Sam anymore.

“You good?” Sam asks.

“I just didn’t—I forgot we were almost done.”

“Yeah,” Sam says. Captain jumps on him, and he ruffles her neck fur before grabbing her feet and gently putting her back on the floor. “So that’s today’s lesson!” he says brightly. Very brightly. With a big, toothy smile. “You can always call if you have questions."

“Call the store?” Bucky asks.

Sam blinks, and the ducks his head. Looking hard at Captain, he fiddles with his treat pouch. (Captain watches him intently.) “Did you get my text?”

“What text?” is Bucky’s automatic answer. He forgets texts all the time. Accidentally opens them and then never responds. He feels like a text from Sam Wilson would have been memorable, or at least warranted an answer.

Sam narrows his eyes.

“Your number!” Bucky cries, remembering in a snap.

A slow smile creeps across Sam’s lips. “So that’s a yes?”

“I got your number,” Bucky confirms. “I mean, unless that was some other Sam texting me.”

“You texting a lot of Sams?” he asks, showing teeth. He leans closer, like he kind of wants to see Bucky’s phone screen, and then stops partway there.

“Well, I couldn’t tell for _sure_ it was you, since there wasn’t even a last _name_ ,” Bucky replies.

“You know my last name,” Sam accuses.

“Sure,” Bucky says. “I saved you in my phone and everything.” Bucky holds out his phone.

Sam cranes his neck, smiling curiously at the screen.

“I saved you as ‘Redwing Sam’,” Bucky explains.

Sam stares at Bucky’s phone for a second. Parts his lips. Then presses them together. “You’re an asshole.”

“You love it,” Bucky says.

They look at each other, and a smile quirks Sam’s lips.

“Sam, hey! Sam!” a voice calls.

Bucky and Sam break eye contact.

“Sam, are you free?” It’s Riley, approaching from the back corner in his little fish cave. He looks a little wild, even for Riley. His dark hair sticks more directions than usual, and his eyes are sparkling.

“Yeah, I’m—we just got done.” Sam steps toward him.

A woman rounds the corner behind Riley. Bucky doesn’t recognize her. She’s young, probably about their age, and her hair also flies in all directions, but in a flowy-Instagram-model way, rather than Riley’s I-keep-running-my-hands-through-last-night’s-product way. She has on these cute fashionable high-waisted shorts. In her arms, she hugs a box covered in a bedsheet.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asks.

“It’s a sick bird,” Riley says.

The girl sighs, like she actually needs the air. When she talks, it’s breathy and fast. “He’s not sick, he’s fine. I’m sure he’s fine. There was just a lot of blood and I couldn’t get it to stop.”

“Let me see,” Sam says.

The girl sets the box down and uncovers it, and it’s not a box at all. It’s a bird cage.

Captain instantly tugs on her leash and whines. “Hush, you’re fine,” Bucky scolds. He winds the leash around his hand to shorten it more. Captain whimpers again. “Leave it.”

Sam kneels next to the bird cage. “Oh, I see it on his little perch there.”

“He’s probably fine,” the girl says again, haggard. “I know you’re not a vet, or anything, but you’re in walking distance, and I tried cleaning him up, and it just won’t stop bleeding.”

“No problem,” Sam says, glancing up quickly, then back to the bird. “We can fix that, can’t we? It’s your little foot, isn’t it. I can see the footprints.”

“Yeah,” the girl says. “You can fix it though?”

“Oh, yeah,” Sam assures her, pushing himself to his feet. “I’ll take him in the back, I have some stuff to patch him up.”

“Oh my god, thank you _so_ much,” she says. The words come out on a heavy exhale, like she was holding her breath, like she was much more worried than she wanted to reveal. “I’m so sorry to do this, I know it’s not your job or anything, but you’re the closest people—and Redwing is always so good—I don’t know. Thank you.”

Sam rests his hand on top of the cage and smiles. “It’s really fine, I’m happy to help.”

“Okay—okay,” the girl sighs again. “You be good, Rufus.”

“He’ll be fine,” Sam assures her. “It’ll take about … fifteen, twenty minutes. There’s a coffee place on the corner, if you wanna wait. You know, relax a little.”

The relief just rolls off her, and in response, Bucky feels his own heartbeat relax, again. He can’t release the tension in his shoulders; he’s still restraining his dog. But he feels better knowing the bird will be okay.

After a few more worried good-byes, the girl whisks from the store, giving off nothing more than a mildly flustered vibe. Bucky’s chest wells up with deep admiration for her. He would probably be a non-functional wreck in this situation.

He looks back down at the bird cage, which Sam has half-way covered, again.

“How do you stop the bleeding?” Bucky asks. “Do Band-Aids work on birds?”

Sam chuckles. “Never tried it.” He pokes a finger through the bars of the cage. “Want me to try a Band-Aid on you, Rufus?”

“But you can fix it, right?”

“Yeah, I can fix Rufus.” Sam re-adjusts the bedsheet to cover the whole cage and hoists it in his arms, gripping the bottom tray. It’s a big cage, bigger than Sam’s torso. He has to crane his neck to see where he’s going.

“I’m still confused,” Bucky says, mostly to himself.

“You can go with him,” Riley suggests. “Here, I’ll watch Captain. You can watch Sam do his bird thing.”

“Oh,” Bucky says, processing Riley’s words like 10 seconds too slowly. By the time he figures out what’s going on, Riley has already extracted the leash from his grip and begun talking to Captain. “Wait, are you sure?” Bucky asks. “Like, it’s okay if I go in the back and everything?”

Riley wrinkles his nose. “Sure,” he says.

“But I’m not an employee.”

“You’re Bucky,” Riley says. He shrugs and turns back to Captain, cooing and babbling about treats.

Bucky opens his mouth and shuts it.

“You coming?” Sam calls, holding an _employees-only_ door open with his foot.

“Oh,” is all Bucky says, and he follows Sam. It’s not really a yes-or-no question. It is. But it really _isn’t._

Bucky finds himself in a kitchenette with an unfinished cement floor. First thing through the door, Bucky sees an old refrigerator, and beyond that lies a stretch of counterspace, old but spotless, with a towel spread in the corner and cupboards hanging overhead. A deep stainless steel sink is mounted at the other end of the counter, and above it, a bunch of scrubbers and sponges and brushes and fishnets. On the opposite wall, two folding tables have been set up to hold a handful of big glass terrariums and bird cages. A little brown bird flutters in one of them. Bucky doesn’t see anything in the nearest glass tank, but it’s set up with a heating lamp on top of the lid, so there’s probably a reptile camouflaged inside.

“This is where we keep animals that get sick,” Sam explains as he sets the bird cage on the empty counterspace.

Bucky glances back at the little brown bird.

“That guy was losing tail feathers,” Sam says. “I think he’s fine, though. I think his cage-mates were just bullies.”

“Aw,” Bucky says. He puts a finger up to the bars. “Nerd bird.”

“Hi!” Sam says, pitching his voice higher than normal. Bucky turns around in confusion. “Hi, Rufus!” Sam adds. “You’re okay, aren’t you, bud?”

He’s talking to the bird.

“What’s in the glass cage?” Bucky asks.

“A gecko that dropped his tail,” Sam says. “Rufus, big Rufus, come here. Come be my friend.”

“Dropped his tail?”

“Yeah, it got caught in a decoration in his tank or something. It’s growing back, now.”

Bucky grimaces. He leans over and peers into the tank. No sign of a gecko. He’s not really disappointed about it.

When he turns around again, Sam has Rufus out of the cage, standing on his finger. Rufus is cute. He looks nothing like Redwing; he’s mostly gray with a yellow mohawk and rosy red cheeks. A little warble sounds in his throat, and Sam smiles. “Hi, good boy.”

Bucky watches Sam hold Rufus up so his little bird feet are at eye level. Sam’s eyes dance over his feathers and then flick between all his toes. “Yeah. Yeah, I bet that hurts.”

Bucky forces himself to inhale. “Do you want help?”

Looking up, Sam blinks at Bucky, as if he forgot there was someone else in the room. “Um. Sure. Here.” Sam turns to open a cupboard. He inspects its contents, picks up a little plastic bottle and reads the label, sets it back down, picks up another container, and says, “This will work.”

He hands the container to Bucky.

“Now I just need a towel.” Sam opens and closes some drawers and makes an annoyed noise. “They’re never here when you need them.”

“What about …” Bucky nods at the towel on the counter.

“It’s probably still damp,” Sam says. He pats a hand over the towel to test it and shrugs. “Not bad, I’m—this’ll work.”

He lowers Rufus down to the counter and lets the bird hop off his finger. While the bird fluffs up and wiggles his tail, Sam bends over to get a look at the little bird feet. Rufus leaves behind a little smudge of blood where he walks. Sam angles his neck and his back and then makes a frustrated noise in his throat.

“Here, let’s just—”

With slow, steady hands, he scoops up the towel and the bird together and sinks to the floor. He folds up his legs and spreads the towel in his lap. “Okay, Rufus,” he says, the way you would talk to a two-year-old. “You ready for this?”

The bird doesn’t really struggle. He wiggles his little tail feathers and tweets, but otherwise lets Sam manhandle him. It impresses Bucky, considering Captain won’t let people hug her without squirming and dancing away, let alone pick her up.

Sam inspects the bird, gently touching its toes with one fingertip. He spreads the little bird toes apart, and Rufus flinches. “Shh,” Sam says absently, still studying the wound. “You’re fine.”

Bucky watches closely, transfixed by the way Sam is transfixed. Focused, is what he is. His lips part just enough to show a little of the white of his teeth. His eyelashes move slowly as he investigates the wound, and a pair of lines form between his eyebrows.  

“He’s got a little cut between his toes,” Sam says without looking up from the bird. “It’s not a big deal, probably from climbing his cage the wrong way.”

“He doesn’t need a vet, or something?” Bucky asks hesitantly.

“Nah, just the right thing to fix it,” Sam says. He looks up at Bucky and smiles.

“And you’re just the right thing?” Bucky asks, tilting his head.

“You know it.” Sam’s smile turns into a grin. Then he nods at the container in Bucky’s hand. “Bring that over.”

Bucky kneels down and unscrews the cap. Inside the container is a yellowish powder.

Sam beckons him closer. “Let me just—a little closer, in case he freaks out.”

Bucky scoots over, shuffling in close until their knees touch.

“Yeah,” Sam says in a low voice. His attention is on the bird, again, but Bucky can see his throat move when he talks.

Their knees are touching.

Their knees are touching.

“Just stay still, Rufus,” Sam says softly. First, he folds up a corner of the towel and dabs Rufus’s foot. Then he dips the tip of his middle finger into the little dish of powder. It looks like little gold crumbs stuck to his fingertip. Gently, shaking ever-so-slightly—so slightly that Bucky wonders if he actually saw it—Sam applies the yellow powder to the bird’s foot. Presses it gently in the joint between his toes so that a fine dust lingers, staunching the blood.

Rufus doesn’t struggle at all.

“There you go,” Sam mutters.

It’s amazing to watch. Even with the tip of his finger trembling, Sam’s hand stays steady. It’s only because Bucky is in his personal space, up close— _their knees are touching_ —that’s the only reason he can see the slight quaver there. The way Rufus twitches his foot just slightly the second before Sam touches him. The way he presses the wound for just a second and the way it’s fixed, just like that, like if Bucky blinked, he would miss it. He doesn’t blink, though.

He looks up—and his breath leaves him. His gaze snags on Sam’s lips, and then floats to his eyes. Right there, a sigh away. Right there, looking back at Bucky: Sam’s eyes, dark and blown out with little pinpricks of light and _close._ Bucky can feel it. He can absolutely feel it, the look in Sam’s eyes. He can feel it like stepping into a beam of 3-pm-sunlight on a hot summer day.

They look into each other’s eyes. And—it’s in slow motion, god, Bucky lives in a rom-com—Sam’s eyes track slowly down to Bucky’s mouth. He’s still staring, there, staring at Bucky’s lips, when he says,

“I bet that girl is back.”

“Yeah.”

Sam looks at Bucky’s eyes; back at his lips; inhales; and then deflates. He looks down at the bird.

“Let’s get you back in your cage, buddy.”

He stands up, fluid and swift.

Bucky watches the cuffs of Sam's pants as he fumbles with things overhead. When Bucky grunts and shifts one of his knees out from under him, Sam’s hand lands on his shoulder.

“Let me give you a hand.”

Bucky blinks. He takes Sam’s hand, and his stomach swoops because he is a walking fucking romantic comedy, and he allows Sam to pull him to his feet.

“Thanks for your help,” Sam says.

Maybe Bucky is imagining the way Sam looks at his lips when he says it. “No problem,” Bucky says. “After next week I guess you’re on your own, though.”

Sam pulls his bottom lip between his teeth. He turns back to the bird cage and flips the sheet over to hide it.

“You better go save your dog,” Sam says, turning back to Bucky with a smile on his face. “Riley probably stole her by now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i forgot to change the total number of chapters until now. surprise! there's one more.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Literal fluff, cake, puppies, and rainbows.

The following week, Bucky finds Steve at the front counter. Business must be slow this afternoon, if Steve is cashiering and not wrestling a Siberian husky into a blowdryer.

“Hey, Buck!” Steve calls as soon as he sees him. He darts out from behind the counter, making Captain startle, because she’s a complete spaz. “Oh, I’m sorry girl! Here, I have treats for you!” Reaching back around to the counter, he grabs a MarroBone out of a dog dish.

When he asks Captain to sit, she sits; but when he gives her the treat, she spits it out.

It doesn’t even faze Bucky at this point. “So, how’s the store?”

“Sam is fine,” Steve says with a wink.

“Steve! I didn’t—that’s—that’s not what I _said!”_

“I heard you helped do surgery on a bird last week.”

Bucky turns fully red, now. He probably just looks like a cartoon character. “Okay, it was more like a papercut. And I dunno who you talked to, but Sam did all the work.”

Steve snorts.

_“Stop.”_

“Why didn’t you just buy him a drink the other night?” Steve asks. He’s not mean about it. He sounds genuinely confused by the idea of pining after someone and not jumping directly into the deep end with them.

“Not all of us are as slutty as you,” Bucky points out.

“Having drinks is not slutty,” Steve says.

“You and Riley sure made it look that way.”

Steve looks up and smiles wistfully. “The drinks were not the slutty part. If you wanted to see slutty, you—”

“Okay, okay, thanks, I get it, thank you.” Bucky turns to his dog. “Ready to go, pup?”

“Hey, listen, Bucky, listen.” Steve pushes himself off the counter and slides an arm around Bucky’s shoulders. “I’m messing with you. I just think you’re great, and I think Sam is great, and I would totally melt if you two got together.”

“You can’t turn all my crushes into happily-ever-afters, Steve.”

“Uh, I can try,” Steve says. He gives Bucky a playful shove, steps back, and folds his arms. Steve is a pro at giving physical comfort when it’s needed, but also giving Bucky space. Bucky always appreciates that. “Anyway, I’m not planning your wedding over here. It’s just that, the way you and Sam make eyes at each other?” Steve bats his eyes to emphasize. “I’m not gonna let you chicken out.”

“You’re _not_ planning our wedding?”

“Sam would look so good in a red suit, though,” Steve sighs.

Bucky rolls his eyes.

“I mean like, _crimson._ Something darker,” Steve goes on. “Something classy.”

“Okay, you’re done,” Bucky deadpans. He tugs Captain’s leash. “Besides, crimson isn’t a summer color, and we both know I’m having a summer wedding.”

“Hey,” Steve says, peering at the crook of Bucky’s elbow. “What’s in the bag?”

Bucky inhales through his nose and just blurts it out. “I got Sam a thank-you present.”

“Isn’t that the logo for your pastry shop?” Steve prods.

“Stop thinking about weddings, Steve.”

“You got him a _cake!”_

“Stop.”

Just because Steve is absolutely right about the little personal-sized bundt cake Bucky bought for Sam doesn’t mean Bucky has to put up with his nosy teasing. Bucky turns toward the back of the store.

He loves Steve so fucking much, honestly. He can be rude to Steve and still be best friends with him.

“Wait, Bucky.”

Bucky stops, but Captain doesn’t. “Hey, stop, come here, Cap.” It takes a second to reel her in, and by then, Steve is at their side, again.

“I can keep that up here at the front counter, if you want.” Steve gestures toward the paper bag. “I got a fridge behind the counter.”

Did Bucky mention loving Steve? He’s great. A total brat at all times, but great.

When they arrive at the back of the store, Bucky and Captain find Sam waiting at Redwing’s perch. Sam feeds Redwing a sunflower seed, turns around, sees Bucky, and his face blooms.

“Hey, you two!” he calls. “Y’all ready for this test?”

 _“Bad dog!”_ Redwing adds.

Captain dashes to the end of her leash, desperate to say hi to Sam.

“Oh god,” Bucky says, digging his heels into the linoleum floor. “Apparently not.”

Sam laughs. His whole face beams upon Captain like a spotlight; his expression is exactly how Bucky’s heart feels when he thinks about how awesome Captain is. (She’s very awesome.) And she’ll be even more awesome if she manages to not flunk this test, which seems like a small stretch, at the moment.

“Hi, Cap,” Sam says, his voice tender. He smiles at her, but sticks his hands in his pockets. Bucky recognizes it as a trick to discourage dogs from jumping. He vaguely remembers Sam telling him, weeks ago, not to reach out when they jump, because that’s inviting them.

Automatically, Captain’s front foot springs off the ground. Sam tilts his body, Cap hovers for a moment, and then her front foot returns to the floor. Instead of jumping, she pushes herself against Sam and fwaps her tail against his legs.

Bucky looks at his feet. “Our test is off to a great start.”

Sam laughs and bends forward to scratch behind Captain’s ears.

As Sam describes the test, Bucky relaxes a little. It sounds less like an obstacle course and more like a review. And it sounds like all the things they’ve definitely been practicing for several weeks.

“Don’t think of it as a test,” Sam finishes, reading Bucky’s mind. “It’s more like showing off everything you learned.”

“You’re just trying to lull me into a false sense of security,” Bucky accuses. He flashes a smile so Sam knows he’s teasing.

“Come on, now,” Sam says. “I _want_ you to pass, man.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Sam assures him, raising his eyebrows. “I don’t wanna have to teach you no more.”

Bucky drops his jaw, scandalized. “I see how it is.”

They make eye contact, grinning at each other like idiots. Sam bites his bottom lip. Bucky has seen him do it before, and the gesture is starting to become familiar. Bucky has this feeling like champagne bubbling in his chest. They gaze at each other, and the moment stretches, the thin spun glass of the stem of a champagne flute.

 _“Pretty bird!”_ Redwing caws.

Captain barks.

It snaps the moment in half.

Bucky looks at his dog and gently scolds her. “No,” he says. “No bark.”

She sits and swishes her tail.

Sam turns to his bird. “I’ll be back, Redwing. Just gotta finish a test, you know.”

Bucky’s eyes flick from Sam to Redwing. She sits perched at arm’s length from Bucky, and when he shuffles closer, she stretches her neck and fluffs her feathers. “Can I get a kiss?” Bucky asks.

Sam’s lips part and a soft sigh escapes. “For good luck?” Sam says, voice quiet. He clears his throat.

“Hell yeah,” Bucky says. “I mean, yeah.”

Sam snorts.

Bucky leans closer, and Redwing bobs her head. Bucky turns his cheek to her and looks at Sam, instead, watches the look on Sam’s face as Redwing presses her cold beak to Bucky’s skin. Sam’s eyes light up.

“Good girl!” Sam murmurs, moving in close and offering her a sunflower seed.

They stand a breath away from each other, now. Bucky can smell a subtle, earthy body wash. Or deodorant, or cologne. Bucky’s never been good at telling the difference. Would a dog trainer wear cologne to work? He inhales again, and doesn’t really care one way or another, he just likes it. He likes Sam.

He kisses him.

He just does it, jumps in, like it’s part of the conversation. Warm lips soften under Bucky’s, and he inhales and shivers, and Sam can probably feel it. He doesn’t have the courage to prolong the kiss. A breathless second passes before he pulls away, but the tingling warmth stays, even after they part.

Bucky glances at Sam’s lips. They still bear the hint of a smile and the hint of a kiss.

While Bucky watches, Sam opens his mouth. “For good luck?”

Bucky grins and looks at Redwing. “Yeah.”

After that, the test is kind of a blur. Bucky won’t remember any details. It’s like walking through fog, and the entire time, his heart pounds and his eyes feel hot and his face hurts from smiling. It’s like walking through the store, seeing through a camera lens. Nothing in his periphery registers at all, and he has no idea how he got from Point A to Point B, but Bucky sees in sharp crystal-clear photographs every time Sam smiles at Captain, every time Captain gets a trick right, every time Sam pulls a treat out of his pouch, every time they accidentally make eye contact and Bucky’s blood rushes to the surface of his skin.

They travel from the back of the store to the front, practicing a different command every ten feet or so. When they reach the front room, Sam directs them toward the rainbow of leashes and collars.

“Okay,” he says. “Here, I’d like to see you do a ‘sit-stay’ for fifteen seconds.”

Bucky inhales and glances across the room at Steve. Can he tell? Can he tell from behind the counter that everything is different? Is he mentally planning a bachelor party, figuring out any other best man duties?

(It’s Steve, so he’s probably been doing that for the last half hour. But does he know, though? Can he tell?)

“Okay, Cap,” Bucky says, bracing himself. “This is the hard part.”

“Remember, you don’t have to move,” Sam reminds him.

Bucky holds up a treat. Captain automatically sits down. “Okay, sit,” Bucky says. “Captain, stay.”

She wags her tail, but doesn’t move. At least not officially. Her whole butt is kind of wiggling, but she’s on the same linoleum tile where she started so excitement probably doesn’t count against her. Bucky glances at Sam, burns up from the outside in, and looks back at Captain.

“Are you counting?” Bucky asks.

“What?” Sam says. “I mean—I _can_ count. Do you need me to count?”

“I’m not counting.”

“I’m not counting either.”

Captain whimpers.

“Stay,” Bucky repeats, his gaze locked with the dog’s.

“... Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.” Sam says it like he _has_ been counting.

“Good girl!” Bucky says, relinquishing the treat. “Good job, Captain!”

She spins in a circle and jumps up for a hug. Bucky turns his back to her. Eventually he’ll break that jumping habit. So help him.

“That’s it!” Sam says. His face blossoms, all teeth and bright eyes.

“You said you weren’t counting!” Bucky accuses.

“I guessed.”

“Do we need to do it again?”

 _“Can_ you do it again?”

Bucky opens his mouth, giving Sam his most scandalized look. “How dare you. My dog is super good.”

“I know,” Sam shrugs. “She’s not the one I’m worried about.”

Bucky blinks at him, and he feels seven emotions at once and feels them all cross his face before settling on a goofy smile. He bites his lip. Tries to stop embarrassing himself. “Wow,” he says. Because he’s so clever.

Captain whines and dances in a circle around Bucky’s legs. The leash wraps behind his knees and he stumbles, just a little, just a couple steps closer to Sam, who sticks out a hand and catches Bucky by the elbow for balance.

They look at each other.

Bucky breathes in, and the air in his chest stretches, reaches out. “So, that’s it? That’s the test?”

“That’s the test.”

Bucky breathes out. “Hey, Captain, you graduated!” Bucky turns to his dog and drops to one knee. She flails in his arm and licks his face. Bucky looks up at Sam while he fends off dog-kisses. “I totally thought we were gonna fail.”

“Captain was never gonna fail,” Sam says, eyes sliding over to the squirmy dog.

“Did I hear Captain passed?” Steve calls from across the room. “Captain, are you smart now?”

When she hears Steve say her name, Captain freezes, then dashes toward him. It’s so sudden that Bucky loses his grip on the leash. She’s so strong considering she’s missing one leg. Bucky has a split-second heart-attack, no big deal, and almost yells something obscene, but Captain runs straight into Steve’s arms. It’s embarrassing, though, and very unlike a puppy-school-graduate.

Bucky follows her over to the cash register, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, she’s super smart, obviously.”

“Well, she graduates regardless,” Sam says. “So she gets her certificate, here.” He pulls out a fancy little graduation diploma from the folder under his arm. “Here you go, Captain-dog!”

Bucky takes the diploma, takes a look at the generic printed congratulations, and remembers—“Oh, hey, I brought you a present!”

Sam smiles at Captain. Then he looks up at Bucky, and his eyebrows rise. “Oh, you mean _me?”_

“Yeah!” Bucky shoots Steve a pointed look. “It’s up here behind the counter.”

Steve hands off the pastry bag to Bucky, who passes it along to Sam. Even though he’s still petting Captain, keeping her calm, Steve’s attention focuses fully on Bucky and Sam.

The present isn’t gift-wrapped or anything. When Sam peers inside the paper bag, he stares for a moment, then throws his head back and laughs. “You got me a cake!”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. His stomach practically takes off in flight.

“You got me a cake!” Sam says again. He opens his eyes and looks right at Bucky and steps close. Still laughing, he grips Bucky’s elbow. “That’s why you texted me about chocolate or lemon or whatever this morning!”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. He can’t manage anything but “yeah,” because Sam is touching his arm.

Still. Sam is still touching his arm.

“This like some kinda apple-for-the-teacher thing?” Sam asks, grinning ear-to-ear.

“Yeah,” Bucky says, because it is still all he can say.

“Or is this a bribe?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “I mean—” he clears his throat, “I mean, um. It’s a thank-you. You made my dog less of an idiot.”

Sam takes a deep breath and his laughter dissolves. His smile turns soft. “This is super sweet, seriously,” he says, squeezing Bucky’s elbow. “Thank you.”

“I just figured, you know, you spent all this time with us, it’s the least we could do,” Bucky rambles. “It’s not weird,” he adds, glancing at Steve. “I mean, like you said, apple for the teacher. People probably give you thank-you gifts all the time.”

“Nah,” Sam says. “Not—well, maybe?”

“He never gets presents,” Steve steps in.

“Really?” Bucky asks.

“I got a couple tips sometimes,” Sam allows.

“You never get _presents,”_ Steve says. “You definitely never got a _cake.”_

Bucky’s stomach does the little bird-flutter thing again. “Shut up, Steve.”

“Yeah, shut up, Steve,” Sam agrees.

Steve ignores them. “So, are you two gonna go eat cake?”

“I said shut up,” Bucky says, because he knows exactly what Steve is suggesting.

Sam laughs. Bucky looks at him, and they make eye contact, and Sam laughs harder, and Bucky didn’t realize other people knew what a certified brat Steve can be, and he also knows he and Sam are both thinking about the same kind of eating and the same kind of cake.

Captain barks and flails a little in Steve’s arms.

“I should probably take my dog outside,” Bucky says. His voice seems very loud.

He breaks eye contact with Sam and reaches for Captain’s leash. The man is at work, for crying out loud, and if they keep flirting, Bucky is gonna want to do something about it, and they _can’t,_ because the man is at _work,_ and—

“Sam, why don’t you go with him?” Steve asks. He tightens his hold on Captain, preventing Bucky’s escape. Bucky scowls.

“Go with Bucky?”

“Take Captain out,” Steve confirms. “Both of you. She’s a handful.”

Does he know they kissed? It seems like he knows they kissed. Something about the wolfish look in his eyes and the way he watches Sam closely before relinquishing Bucky’s dog.

“Steve—” Sam begins, but Steve cuts him off.

“Seriously,” Steve assures him. “The store will be fine.”

Sam stands still, just blinking at Steve, for several seconds, as if a lot of thoughts are going through his head at once and freezing him up. Which is when Bucky realizes he probably looks exactly the same.

Bucky swallows. “That’s—that’s a good idea. I’m—you wanna go for a walk with us? Sam?”

(Jesus, why does his throat close over those words, for crying out loud, he’s not asking the guy on a _date,_ get it together.)

“Steve, I—are you sure?” Sam asks.

“Yes.” Steve enunciates that syllable like it’s his job. Then he opens the door for them. Bucky can’t tell if Steve is wingmanning for him or for Sam, but he does it so effortlessly that Bucky wouldn’t question it either way.

Bucky stops to let Sam exit first, because he may have small social skills but he knows how to be a gentleman in theory. The problem is, Captain is not a gentleman. When Sam moves for the door, Captain immediately darts across his path and drags Bucky outside, jostling Sam on the way and wagging her tail furiously.

“Sorry—fuck—Captain thinks she has to go first,” Bucky says.

Sam doesn’t answer. He can’t. He’s laughing too hard.

“If you’re gonna walk with us, you gotta keep up with us,” Bucky adds, and, as if on cue, Captain makes a beeline for the nearest mailbox to give it a good sniff.

Sam does come along, and he does keep up.

At first, they don’t say much. They watch Captain explore the Great Outdoors of Brooklyn and offer the occasional “aw” or “no” or “what did you find” or “don’t eat that.” While the stand at the curb, waiting to cross the street, Sam reaches a hand out. Bucky’s stomach freefalls for a split second because _he’s asking to hold hands?_ but then Sam nods at the dog, and Bucky realizes he’s offering to take Captain’s leash.

And that’s sweet, too.

Of all the times to clam up. The problem is, Bucky is thinking too hard. He takes a deep breath, and this image pops up like he's standing on the edge of a pool staring into the water, and he says, "We should get coffee sometime," and at the exact same moment, Sam says, "You wanna go out tomorrow night?"

"Tomorrow night works!"

"Coffee sounds great!"

"I mean, it's up to—"

"Sorry, it's just—" Right as Sam begins to speak, Captain throws herself into him and gets him in the gut with her one front foot. "—Oh, god, hi, Captain. Hi. You should get off. Thank you. Hi, sweetheart."

Bucky starts off with a cascade of apologies, but they eventually dissolve into uncontrollable giggling.

"You can't laugh at me!" Sam protests. "This is _your_ dog!"

"She passed _your_ test!" Bucky says, cackling.

Sam laughs, too. They laugh together. They miss the crosswalk twice just because they're laughing too much. Bucky gasps a little, bites his lip, and glances across the street. "You wanna ...?"

"Lead the way."

"So," Bucky says, a little more relaxed, now, from the laughter or the hot sun or his dog's goofy nature or maybe from the way the corners of Sam's eyes crinkle when he looks at him. "So. First of all, we're definitely getting coffee."

"Okay," Sam chuckles. "What's second?"

"I don't actually have a second thing," Bucky admits. "Something between coffee and a wedding?" As soon as it's out of his mouth, he winces.

Sam narrows his eyes. "You know, some people plan what they're gonna say beforehand."

"Sounds like a lot of work."

Sam's mouth tightens, and he looks at his feet as they walk. Captain weaves back and forth in front of them. "Yeah. Yeah, coffee sounds great," he says. He glances at Bucky, then back at the ground. "Sorry I didn't ask you earlier. Kinda figured we’re in different leagues, that’s all."

“No shit.”

Sam squints. “You’re not supposed to agree.”

“That you’re way out of my league?” Bucky asks.

“… Other way around, bro,” Sam says, shaking his head. “You’re a fucking war hero ... going to school, a future, and all that. I work hourly at a corner pet store. I’m kind of a loser.”

Bucky blinks. He looks at Sam’s face, and then at Sam’s toes. “Loser?”

Sam kicks a rock across the curb.

“You were literally in the Air Force,” Bucky states.

“And now look at me.”

“Dude.” Bucky glances at Captain, doing her cute little three-legged hop-walk, and he feels a little braver. His eyes drift up to Sam's face. Sam avoids Bucky's gaze, but Bucky doesn't mind, because when Sam looks across the street his eyes look big and round and his eyebrows perk up in this cute inquisitive way. Bucky smiles.  “First of all, I can’t _stop_ looking at you.”

Sam is quiet for a minute. Captain drifts toward a fire hydrant, and Sam tells her to “leave it,” which gets her attention. She wiggles around to bump against Sam’s leg.

"I still don't have a second thing," Bucky says.

“I figured,” Sam says, and his eyelashes flutter, like he thought about rolling his eyes and then stopped. “I just—you definitely don’t care that I dropped out of school to scoop dog poop?”

“Definitely not.”

“And you definitely _would_ still go out with me.”

Bucky bites down on a smile. “Hypothetically, definitely.”

“I think your dog is way past hypotheticals,” Sam says, grinning at Captain as she squirms closer to him and snuffles his pants.

“She knows you have treats in your pockets.”

“No,” Sam counters, “she’s clearly a good judge of character.”

“I can’t believe you thought I was out of your league.”

“I spend all day elbow-deep in feces, man!” Sam spreads his hands. “So I have low self-esteem! It’s not weird!”

“I have one arm, Sam,” Bucky deadpans. “I don’t exactly have high standards.”

Sam cocks his head. “Oh, is that so?”

Shit.

An avalanche cascades into Bucky’s stomach. “Fuck, I mean—I’m not—it’s just—not that you’re low-standard.”

“Uh-huh.”

“ _You’re_ the one out of _my_ league. For the record.”

“Okay.”

Bucky opens and closes his hand, missing the leash to fiddle with. “Like, I don’t even know why you’re still talking to me. Your hourly wage is the least of our problems.”

“Oh my god.”

“I mean—not that we have problems!”

“Oh my _god.”_

“There’s not even a ‘we’,” Bucky exclaims, and all he can picture is a shovel and a hole and a mouthful of dirt.

Sam is giggling. He’s been giggling for awhile, actually.

Bucky ducks his head and groans.

“Okay, so you’re definitely _not_ too good for me,” Sam says.

“Can we go back to talking about dogs?” Bucky asks, pretending to be very interested in the pizza truck across the street.

“Sorry I didn’t ask you on a second date,” Sam chuckles.

“… _Second_ date?” Bucky frowns.

Sam sucks in a breath. “Well—I mean, _a_ date. Sorry I didn’t—god,” he sighs, rubbing a hand down his face. “Drinks the other night. It wasn’t really a date, I just kind of—I couldn’t stop thinking of it that way?”

“Wow.”

“Like I said, I’m a loser.”

Bucky ducks and looks at his feet. He wonders a lot of things—he wonders about wishful thinking, _mutual_ wishful thinking. Is it still wishful if it’s mutual? He has no idea how to put that into normal words. He has no idea how to describe the feeling in his sternum when he kissed Redwing and then just kissed Sam, too. He has no idea how to kiss Sam again.

“Bucky?” Sam taps his arm. His hand is gentle, and so is his voice. “Look, honestly? Besides my fucking self-esteem issues? I didn’t ask you out because I figured—the whole teacher-student thing.”

“Oh.” Bucky recovers, and finally turns to look at Sam. It takes a second to wrap his head around that.

Sam’s been teaching private lessons with Captain for five weeks now, but somehow, Bucky forgot there _was_ a teacher-student-thing. The past couple meetings have felt more like hanging out with a friend. Someone Bucky could trust and be honest with about all his problems, especially the dog-related ones. But, duh. “You’re a dog trainer,” Bucky says stupidly.

“… Maybe I _am_ too good for you,” Sam says.

“I’m saying,” Bucky says drily.

“You’re something, that’s for sure.” Sam grins and fidgets with Captain’s leash. “Anyway, I was just thinking too much. I mean, it’s not the same as _real_ teacher-student.”

Bucky smiles. “Since technically _she’s_ your student.”

“Don’t even,” Sam scoffs. “You had as much to learn as her.”

“I already knew how to sit and shake hands, actually.”

Sam cackles, and the laughter dissolves into a coughing fit. “Oh my—oh my god. Do you remember? The first time we met? And I went to fucking _shake your hand?!”_

“Uh, not really,” Bucky says. “I was mostly trying to stop Captain from eating your bird.”

“Oh my god, I _know_ ,” Sam laughs. “I held my hand out and you were holding the fucking leash—I felt like such a _fucking asshole,_ dude.”

Bucky starts to laugh, too. He can kind of remember—but it never really crossed his mind. The day he met Sam, he was mostly engrossed by the way Sam’s shoulders looked in that polo. Plus it’s second-nature for Bucky to do six things at once with one hand, including hold his dog’s leash. “Well, I felt like an asshole too, since Redwing almost became a rotisserie chicken, and all.”

“God,” Sam gasps, wiping his eyes. “That’s why I figured you hated me. From that moment on. I was such a dick.”

“And on top of that, you didn’t want to take advantage of a _student,”_ Bucky says, as fake-serious as he can manage.

Sam chuckles. “Come on, now. If we had got all serious, and like, spending the night and all … I just thought it might be weird.”

“Because of the dog training?” Bucky says, frowning.

 _“… What?”_ Sam stops in his tracks. He fixes Bucky with a full-on are-you-kidding-me-right-now look. “No, not because of the _dog_ —because of the _money_ , bro.”

“Money,” Bucky says. He throws his brain into reverse like he’ll remember how much his dog cost, or how much—oh. Right. “Oh, fuck, I’m paying you.”

“No shit,” Sam says, smiling that ridiculous gap-toothed grin and shaking his head.

“For the lessons.”

“I mean, you better be.”

“Damn right I am,” Bucky says. He pats Captain on her haunches. “This dog costs me an arm and a leg, and I’m running short, over here.”

Sam literally folds in half he laughs so hard.

“You shouldn’t laugh at disabled people,” Bucky deadpans.

Sam laughs more.

It reminds Bucky of something. “You know, I thought you were dating Riley.”

That gets Sam to shut up real quick. “Riley _Reyes?_ And me? _Dating?”_

“You guys argue like an old married couple,” Bucky says.

Sam snorts. “The Odd Couple, maybe," he says, and he's shaking with laughter, and Bucky finds that he's not embarrassed about it, at all. He just wants to laugh along. “Anyway," Sam says, sucking in a breath, "The other night, you know, the drinks and all, I was thinking—if I invited you over, then you’d be back at the store the next day, like, giving me money. And it’d be awkward, you know?”

“Oh, I’m super familiar with awkward.”

“I figured.”

Something occurs to Bucky, as the pedestrian "walk" sign flashes and they hop off the curb and cross to the pet shop corner. He admires Steve’s chalk drawings splashed all across the first-floor-windows. Like wildflowers bursting out from the bottom of a Brooklyn high-rise. "Well, we graduated, now."

Sam shoots him a sly smile. "Sure did."

"Think Steve could break you for that coffee?"

"Maybe not coffee," Sam says, tilting his head thoughtfully. "I already took a lunch break. But maybe something shorter."

Ten minutes later, Sam and Bucky are seated in the little pet shop break room. They plant themselves in folding chairs and lean over a rickety table with a personal-size bundt cake in a cardboard container between them. Panting hard from the heat, Captain lounges on the floor by their feet, for once worn out enough to not be a nuisance. Bucky makes Sam take the first bite.

Sam stabs off a bite with his fork, then eyes Bucky suspiciously. "Should I be worried? You don't trust the cake people?"

"It's your cake," Bucky protests. "It's a present for you."

"Mm-hm."

"Plus I've never tried the chocolate."

Sam rolls his eyes, but takes his bite. He chews, and without opening his mouth, he makes a little surprised noise. "That's good!"

"Better be," Bucky says, and digs in.

They finish the cake pretty quick, after that. Once they're down to crumbs, Bucky learns that it's hard to close a little take-out container with one hand. Something else weird to check off the list. Sam doesn't help him. Not right away, at least. Bucky fiddles with the little cardboard latches for a second, and then Sam says, "Here, hey," and he pushes the container aside, leans in, and kisses Bucky.

It only lasts a moment. When Sam pulls away, Bucky stares like an idiot. 

Sam grins and runs his tongue along his bottom lip. "You taste like chocolate."

"Oh," Bucky says. 

Sam grins harder. "I'm okay with it."

They kiss again, and they take their time. Sam presses his mouth to Bucky's, and Bucky tilts his head, and Sam parts his lips, and Bucky only has a split second to consider his next move before Sam's tongue kind of experimentally finds Bucky's. Something vibrates around Bucky's navel, and he hums.

They part again, only slightly, and hotter, this time. The room got hotter. Definitely.

Bucky watches Sam's lips. "You know, I didn't really think of you as a guy with a sweet tooth."

"... Then why the hell did you buy me a cake?" Sam asks.

Bucky doesn't have an answer for that, so he kisses Sam again, and that seems to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i like to think of this fic as a little personal size bundt cake. i love chocolate cake and i'm just real happy. and so are sam and bucky. AND CAPTAIN AND REDWING <3


End file.
